A Privy Pit Treasury

Mooresville resident Martin Van Zant kindly emailed the following photograph showing a medicine bottle that native Mooresvillian William L. Thompson, M.D. (1866-1932), prescribed to a patient in the early 20th century.

Click all photos to enlarge

As the label reveals, Doctor Thompson prescribed a remedy for gastrointestinal distress ("Two teaspoonfuls [in] water every two hours until bowels are qu[iet]" is our best guess).  Perhaps the patient was experiencing severe G.I. distress due to chronic constipation, and the prescription was meant to address that.  Conversely, the patient may have had the opposite difficulty, and perhaps the bottle's contents were an anti-diarrheal or anti-gas treatment.  In any event, we hope the patient found relief from his or her ailment.

Although Mr. Van Zant discovered this particular bottle in a shop, he said that, as an avid antique bottle collector, he has found many bottles (and other items) in the pits of old outhouses.  He is an expert on the subject and has an extensive collection.

Before indoor plumbing and municipal trash collection, it was common for Americans to dispose of all manner of household objects in their outdoor toilets.  Glass bottles were often discarded in this fashion.  When one pit filled with waste products (both organic and manufactured), poorer people usually filled it in and dug another privy hole, while more affluent folks simply paid to have the pits scooped.  Items that sank below the dredging level would remain to be later discovered.

A typical outhouse (ca. 1920)

Plates found in an excavated privy pit

Cross-section reveals buried treasures at the bottom of a privy pit

Collectors of rare household objects, such as pioneer bottles, cups, dishes, utensils, tools, and other historically curious objects search outhouse pits or other trash repositories as carefully as archaeologists excavate living and working areas in buried structures.  There is a veritable treasury of antique household items awaiting discovery at the bottom of pioneers' outdoor toilets.

Outhouses in Mooresville (ca. 1880)

A Mooresville Academy and DePauw University graduate, William Lee Thompson earned his medical doctorate in 1889 from Indiana Central Medical College. Dr. Thompson practiced medicine in Mooresville for over 43 years. He drove an average of 100 miles a day to make house calls and delivered over 3,000 babies.

Dr. William L. Thompson, M.D.  (1866-1932)
(Flashcard courtesy of Mooresville Public library)

Dr. William L. Thompson, M.D. (1920)

(Photo by Manley Brown)

Mooresville Moments #28

William Lee Thompson, M.D.

by Mooresville Public Library

(Click Above to Play Video)

Mooresville Public Library has a few of Doctor Thompson's medical treatises and an amputation surgical kit (complete with various bone saws, probes, and blood-soaked tourniquet) he probably acquired during his medical school or residency days (see photos below).

Dr. Thompson's obituary record is in the library's digitized Legacy Links database.

Dr. Valentine Magenheimer (left) and Dr. William L. Thompson (right) pose (ca. 1909) outside their offices (at 31 South Indiana Street in downtown Mooresville) in (or next to) the automobiles they used to make house calls in Mooresville and the surrounding area.  (Photo by J. P. Calvert)

Advertisement from the 1917 Mooresville High School yearbook,

The '17 Packet

Dr. Thompson served on the Mooresville School Board
(from the 1909 Mooresville High School Senior Annual [yearbook])

From the Mooresville Times, April 18, 1974, page 17

William L. Thompson's obituary

(Mooresville Times, February 18, 1932)

Indianapolis News (undated, ca. December 10, 1920)

Image credits:

• "Dr. W. L. Thompson's Medicine Bottle" © 2018 by Martin Van Zant.
• "Outhouse" © 2018 by Getty Images.
• "Privy Pit Excavation" © 2007 by Digger Odell Publications.
• "Privy Pit Cross-Section" © 2015 by the University of Iowa.
• "Mooresville From Atop the M.E. Church Steeple" (ca. 1880) by J. P. Calvert © 2008 by Mooresville Public Library Indiana Room Collection.
• "Doctors Magenheimer & Thompson's Cars" (ca. 1909) by J. P. Calvert © 2008 by Mooresville Public Library Indiana Room Collection.
• "Doctor Thompson's Car" (ca. 1920) by Manley Brown © 2008 by Mooresville Public Library Indiana Room Collection.
• Newspaper clippings courtesy of Mooresville Public Library Indiana Room Collection.
• Digital scans of 1909 & 1917 Mooresville High School yearbooks © 2015 by Mooresville High School Alumni Association.

Images reprinted by permission.