Manuscript account book for the brothers Dr. Zebulon and Dr. Isaac Hollingsworth, the first licensed physicians to practice in Keokuk, Lee County, Iowa. The entries cover their medical practice from January 1, 1854 through December of 1854. There are several pages in the rear devoted to accounts and notes dealing with a nursery business run by Zebulon Hollingsworth.

      Zebulon Hollingsworth was born March 18, 1827 in Oregonia, Warren County, Ohio. He studied medicine in Cincinnati before continuing his studies at the Western College of Homoeopathic Medicine, at Cleveland, Ohio from which he graduated in 1851. He then settled in Terre Haute, Indiana, where he remained a year, and where he married Martha Ann Davey, on November 18, 1852. He then traveled to Keokuk, Iowa, where his older brother, Dr. Isaac Hollingsworth, had opened an office in 1851, the two brothers became partners in their medical practice which they continued until 1857, when the health of Zebulon failed and he took up farming, horticulture, and ran a nursery business for many years.

       The entries are short on detail but provide an interesting picture of frontier medicine and medical practice. The Hollingsworth brothers provided care to many of Keokuk's early settlers and prominent citizens as well as others of lower social status or who were traveling through on their journey further west. Hollingsworth in many instances notes the occupation, marital status, ethnic and religious background of his patients, and the briefest of synopses of the treatment and medicine prescribed, plus the cost.

       For instance he notes whether a patient is "colored," or "negro," "Irish," "Hollander," or "Mormon." In 1853 there had been a substantial Mormon emigration to Keokuk. The typical cost of treatment was approximately a dollar. However if travel was involved the costs could mount. There is one entry dated: "Oct. 26, 1854 Wm. Ruddick to attend wife in abortion $ 10.00."  The Hollingsworth's also seem to have done a not inconsiderable business in medicines as well and there are entries for purchases of quantities of medicines presumably to be taken along on travel westward.

       The account book is also of considerable interest for researchers in Iowa history and genealogy.