plete account of the incident, and states that "calls for surgical and medical aid were constant every hour in the day."[1] At Green River it was decided that Whitman should return to the east and report favorably on establishing the proposed mission, thus saving a year.
Whitman's return to the states, while Parker went on to the Columbia, was marked by too great activity in the interests of the proposed mission to allow much time for medical affairs. His long journey westward again with his bride and the Spaldings was marked by the violent physical effort of what most medical men of today would undoubtedly describe as getting that accursed wagon to Oregon. But to Whitman that wagon meant getting civilization to the Columbia. Also here were two white women, Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding, proposing to cross 2000 miles of country never before traveled by women of our race. It is difficult to understand the apparent attempt of the fur traders' cavalcade to run away from Whitman and his party, instead of picking up the missionaries, according to arrangement, in view of the doctor's valuable service to a similar group the preceding year. Perhaps the explanation lies in a change of personnel in the 1836 expedition of the fur company, with possible confusion as to previous arrangements. On finally arriving at Waiilatpu Whitman made a home, built his mission, broke ground, planted a farm, and attended to the multitudinous affairs of a new enterprise in a new country. There is little detailed record of his medical activities although we know he was in constant demand. Farnham writes[2] in 1839:
It appeared to me quite remarkable that the doctor (Whitman) could have made so many improvements since the year 1834 (1836). But the industry which crowded every hour of the day, his untiring energy of character, and the very efficient aid of his wife in relieving him in a great degree of the labors of the school, are perhaps circumstances which render possibility probable that in five (three) years one man, without funds for such purposes, without other aid in that business than that of a fellow missionary at short intervals, should fence, plow, build, plant an orchard, and do all the other laborious acts of opening a plantation on the face of that distant wilderness, learn an
