PICKETT, John - 1895
Source: Crawfordsville Weekly Journal (Crawfordsville, IN), 15 Mar 1895
He Lived Long ... And Gave the Doctors the Laugh – An Old Gentleman Who Believed the Medical Profession a Humbug -- Tuesday Uncle John Pickett, of near Alamo, was laid to rest in the quaint old cemetery after having lived for ninety-one years in this vale of tears. Uncle John was a pioneer and a man endowed by nature with a powerful constitution. He lived an abstemious life and took good care of the heritage given him. He was peculiar in that he had no faith whatever in the medical profession and was most intolerant in his criticism and denunciation of doctors. It was one of his proudest boasts that during the ninety odd years of his life no “pill peddler” had ever felt his pulse. His only medicines were simple herbs and these he had occasion for only at rare intervals. He died of old age and it was not until he was pretty well gone that a doctor was called in by the family, which is less skeptical regarding the efficacy of the physician. Even when death approached the old gentleman made it known that he was as well off without a doctor as with one. -- thanks to Sue P :)