Quarantine

From: pbs.org The practice of quarantine—the separation of the diseased from the healthy—has been around a long time. As early as the writing of the Old Testament, for instance, rules existed for isolating lepers. It wasn't until the Black Death of the 14th century, however, that Venice established the first formal system of quarantine, requiring ships to lay at anchor for 40 days before landing. ("Quarantine" comes from the Latin for forty.) The Venetian model held sway until the discovery in the late 1800s that germs cause disease, after which health officials began tailoring quarantines with individual microbes in mind. In the mid-20th...

Read More

19th Century Midwifery

Call The Midwife – An Historical PerspectiveLabels February 14, 2012 by Come Step Back In Time The hit tv series,"Call The Midwife", is a real gem in the BBC’s Sunday night viewing schedule and its popularity is supported by viewing figures topping nearly nine million. I am not at all surprised that a second series has just been commissioned.  The series finale is on Sunday 19th February, BBC 1 at 8.30pm. Based on the books by Jennifer Worth (formerly Lee) about her own real life experiences as a newly qualified midwife in London’s East End during the 1950s.  I am currently reading Call The Midwife and will then move on to In The...

Read More

Civil War Bandages

From: saukcountyhistory.org When Governor Randall made an appeal to Wisconsin women to aid in caring for the soldiers, Sauk County women stepped up to provide medical and economic support. Women began meeting at homes to sew and knit garments for the soldiers. Soon, these informal meetings turned into aid societies with officers, rules, committees and regular schedules of work. These aid societies raised the money needed to purchase materials for their work by gathering subscriptions (a pledge of money) and by entertaining audiences, with tableaus (A type of play in which a group of people create still picture(s) to tell the story) Some...

Read More

Opium in the Civil War

Under the Influence: Marching Through the Opium Fog  by James Street, Jr. By the beginning of the Civil War, there was probably some opium of some form in most household medicine cabinets. In The Plantation Mistress, a 1982 study of women's life in the antebellum south, author Catherine Clinton writes that she found home remedies, all containing opium, for many common illnesses. She observes, ”Laudanum was commonly used throughout the antebellum era, prescribed with unfortunate frequency for 'female complaints'.....contrary to the 20th Century image....., the late 19th Century profile indicates that addicts were disproportionately upper-class,...

Read More

Thoughts of Thanksgiving Dinner

NOVEMBER 21, 1863 By Robert E. Denney After a couple of days of moving troops in the mud around Chattanooga, Sherman was again on the move, crossing the Tennessee at Brown's Ferry and heading northeast for the Confederate right flank around Missionary Ridge. Sherman was to attack the north end of the ridge, Thomas the center. Hooker was to attack the Confederate left flank. There were delays, even more than usual, because of the heavy rains, and the roads were quagmires. Perry, John G., Asst. Surg., USV, 20th Mass. Vols., near Mountain Run, Va.: We are perfectly deluged with rain, and my tent, raised on logs, has a deep pool of water around...

Read More

"Haunted Minds: The Impact of Combat Exposure on the Mental and Physical Health of Civil War Veterans" and "Years of Suffering and Change: Modern Perspectives on Civil War Medicine"

Book Reviews By Captain Rea Andrew Redd Haunted Minds: The Impact of Combat Exposure on the Mental and Physical Health of Civil War Veterans, Judith Andersen [143-158 with notes] and Years of Suffering and Change: Modern Perspectives on Civil War Medicine, James M. Schmidt and Guy R. Hasegawa (editors), Edinborough Press, 2009, $29.95 (hardcover), $13.95 (paper). Judith Anderson introduces her understanding of post-traumatic stress syndrome in Civil War combat veterans with discussion of the disintegration of a veteran's marriage and family. Frank Lang, native German, active duty infantryman, hospital attendant waded through suffering and...

Read More

Dermatology and Skin Disease in the American Civil War

Excerpted from highbeam.com The American Civil War (1861-1865) took place at an interesting moment in the history of medicine and nursing. Only 5 years before, in the mid-1850s, the well-publicized medical disaster affecting British and French troops in the Crimean War had catalyzed a number of fundamental changes in military and civilian medical practice. Most visible were two innovations championed by the British reformer Florence Nightingale: (a) the introduction of professional, female nurses in the military hospitals and (b) an emphasis on sanitation in hospitals and in military camps. Nightingale's efforts culminated in the formation...

Read More

Prevalence of Major Eye Diseases Among US Civil War Veterans, 1890–1910

From: National Institutes of Health By: Frank A. Sloan, PhD, Daniel W. Belsky, BA, and Idrissa A. Boly, MA ABSTRACT Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of major eye diseases and low vision or blindness in a national sample of male US Union Army veterans from 1890 to 1910 and to compare these prevalence rates with contemporary rates for the same diseases and visual status. Design: Longitudinal histories of 16 022 white Union Army veterans receiving disability pensions from 1890 to 1910 were developed from pension board examination records. Prevalence rates of trachoma, corneal opacities, cataract, diseases of the retina and optic nerve,...

Read More

Splints

From: comestepbackintime.wordpress.com Apart from amputation skills, the Civil War Surgeon developed relatively sophisticated techniques in the use of plaster splints. I came across an article, ‘Plaster Splints in the American Civil War’ published 1943 in the December issue of The British Medical Journal by an author just referred to as ‘S.W.’ S.W. had discovered a series of essays, titled ‘A-T’, that had been published between 1862-4 by The United States Sanitary Commissioner and intended for distribution amongst Army Surgeons. The essays covered a wide ranges of topics on battlefield medicine, including techniques for creating plaster splints...

Read More

Wisconsin Towns Send Food for the Troops

From Saukcountyhistory.org Between 1861 and 1865, Baraboo and Prairie du Sac each sent 50 boxes of relief supplies, which included knit garments, blankets, reading material and bandages to the front lines. In addition, women also provided food for the troops. In 1863, scurvy (a disease caused by a lack of vitamin C and characterized by spongy gums, loose teeth, and bruising under the skin and on the mouth, nose and throat) broke out among the Union troops and a call was made for each state to provide anti-scorbutics (a food or supplement that counteracts the effects of scurvy. An example is vitamin C supplements). Below is a list of some...

Read More

Uniform of a Medical Cadet of the U.S. Army

From: westpointcadet.webs.com Coat. For Commissioned Officers  For a Medical Cadet --  Officers frock coat - one row of buttons Trowsers. For a Medical Cadet -- of dark blue cloth, plain, without stripe, welt of buff cloth, down the outer seam Buttons For a Medical Cadet-- gilt, convex, with spread eagle and star, a plain border; large size, seven-eighths of an inch in exterior diameter ; small size, one-half inch. Hat Medical Cadets -- a forage cap according to pattern. Shoulder Straps. Medical Cadets -- A strip of gold lace three inches long, half an inch wide, placed in the middle...

Read More

Medical Cadets

From: westpointcadet.webs.com Rarely seen in images, medical cadets performed important services in the Union Army 's medical department. More than 200 young men served the Union cause during the Civil War in a little-known organization, the U.S. Army Medical Cadet Corps. In addition to their helpful work as members of the corps, many veteran cadets continued to serve in the army's medical department. About 40 percent of them went on to become surgeons, assistant surgeons, or contact surgeons with the Federal forces. George H. Bosley was one such medical cadet. The Medical Cadet Corps was formed by an act of Congress in August 1861. As many...

Read More

Jeff Davis Was Blind in His Left Eye

From: civilwartalk.com Davis fought health problems for a good part of his life, including a nearly fatal bout with malaria in 1836. He was seriously ill again in the winter of 1857-1858, and by February he began suffering from a relapse of a chronic inflammation of his left eye. The disease was so bad that a visiting ophthalmologist commented “I do not see why this eye has not burst.” As a result, most photos of Davis are in right profile, thus hiding his left eye The eye disease can be traced back to his first bout with malaria. About a dozen years later, during a relapse, Davis suffered a “severe eye attack” such that, in the words of...

Read More

Miss Mary Safford: The Angel of Cairo

MISS MARY SAFFORD: The Angel of Cairo By Robert E. Denney In Cairo [IL] that summer [1861] a young woman from Vermont was visiting her brother, the most important banker in town, and she became involved in working at the Cairo hospital when she could. Miss Mary Safford was a well-educated, beautiful, and romantic young woman who captured the heart of every patient, as well as the hearts of the staff, in the hospital. Lacking the homemaking and organizational skills of [Mary Ann] Bickerdyke, she spent her time consoling the patients, writing letters for them, hanging curtains in the windows, smoothing fevered brows and being an angel. The...

Read More

How the Civil War Changed Funeral Practices

From: americacomesalive.com Wars are often responsible for medical and scientific advances, and the Civil War drove the need for a new science: an improved way to handle the dead. So many men died and so many were far from home, there was a growing need for a way to preserve a body for a decent burial once the body arrived home. Families wanted to see their fallen sons once more, and railroads added to the urgency by refusing to carry decaying bodies (identifiable by smell). Today there is increasing interest in “green funerals” (for those looking for eco-friendly solutions), and about one-third of all Americans who die are cremated, according...

Read More