A hospital improved care, but it could not overcome every medical limitation of the era.

This context makes Susan’s emphasis on prevention especially important.

She understood that the doctor could not always cure.

Sometimes the most effective intervention happened before illness began.

Cleaner water mattered.

Individual drinking utensils mattered.

Ventilation mattered.

Reducing alcohol abuse mattered.

Education mattered.

These ideas positioned her closer to modern community medicine than the romantic image of a frontier doctor making dramatic house calls.