Volume 24: George C. Gans, Physician, Marshall County, WV. Ledger., 1838-1862

George C. Gans was a physician practicing in Marshall County in the decades prior to the Civil War. Although most of his patients resided in the area around Moundsville and Elizabeth, Gans does not appear in either the 1840 or the 1850 U.S. census schedules for Marshall County. The ledger documents his treatment of families in Marshall County for a wide variety of ills, including typhoid fever (1861), cholera (1847), and farm injuries. Gans also routinely attended childbirths. His treatments included blistering, bleeding, venesection, lancing, and operating as well as administering medicine and pills. In return for his services, Gans routinely accepted farm produce, labor on his farm, and other useful items such as shingles. He went on to serve as an assistant surgeon in the Civil War.