Matrons

By Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein In both the North and the South, women with the title "matron" worked in general hospitals behind the lines. However, the two sides varied in their concept of a matron's duties. The position of matron was established i the Confederacy by legislation passed on November 25, 1862. Each hospital was to have two chief matrons to supervise the entire "domestic economy" of the hospital. There were also supposed to be two assistant matrons in charge of the laundry and patients' clothing, and two ward matrons for each ward of 100 patients, who made sure that  each patient received suitable bedding, food, and medicine. In...

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The Four Year Itch

By James M. Schmidt “There were two things that stuck closer than a brother; that was the itch and body lice or greyback as they were politely called…I had a bad case of the itch… it became very bad; so much that my hands were swollen and my fingers stood apart. Sores and yellow blisters came between them and they ran corruption. I could scarcely touch anything, my hands were so sore.”-Pvt. Milton Asbury Ryan, Co. B, 14th Mississippi, CSA In his recent article, “The ‘Army Itch’: A Dermatological Mystery of the American Civil War” (Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, August 2006, Vol. 55, No. 2, pp. 302-8), Thomas G. Cropley, M.D.,...

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Women Nurses in the Civil War

 From: carlisle.army.mil Before the Civil War, most nurses in the United States were male. Women in the U.S. knew of Florence Nightingale, a British nurse who successfully served on the battlefield, but social taboos prevented well-to-do women from working outside the home. A "working woman" was an object of pity or scorn in Victorian America. At the beginning of the war, Union Army leadership realized that they needed more medical staff and decided to accept women nurses to fill the gap. Dorothea Dix was chosen as the first superintendent of U.S. Army nurses in June 1861. Dix insisted that her nurses be between thirty-five and fifty...

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Early Medical Education for African Americans

From: nlm.nih.gov Early Medical Education Prior to the Civil War, most African Americans were enslaved. Very few free African Americans were trained physicians or surgeons, and medical education was not open to people of color in the United States.  Those seeking medical careers as physicians most often received their medical education in Canada or Europe, and a few from medical schools in the North. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, African Americans seeking a medical education were faced with difficult prospects.  Few medical schools would admit black students regardless of their academic excellence. Medical education...

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Impact of Disease During Civil War

By Intisar K. Hamidullah After studying medical records from the Northern Army and Civil War Veterans it was concluded that several hundred potential recruits were unable to join due to poor health history from childhood illnesses and slavery. Although, if one did pass the exam, they dealt with disease on crowded battle fields, trenches and encampments from frequent outbreaks of diseases. The ratio of the number of deaths from disease to wound-caused deaths was much higher for black soldiers than for white ones. The high death rate for blacks was attributed to men being weak and more susceptible to disease from poor living conditions,...

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Abraham Lincoln and The Embalmer: Dr. Thomas Holmes

From: drvitelli.typepad.com The assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865 shocked a nation still recovering from four years of bloody civil war.   Along with the hunt for his killers and the uncovering of the assassination plot against the President and several other members of his administration, there was also the logistic nightmare of his funeral and the need to transport the President's body by train from Washington D.C. to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois.   Since the funeral train would retrace the route that Lincoln had traveled to Washington following his election,  the body would be viewed...

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The First Civil War Photographs of Soldiers with Facial Wounds.

Source: New York University Medical Center, New York, USA. Abstract During the Civil War, for the first time in medical history, a large number of excellent photographs were taken of many wounded Union and (to a lesser degree) Confederate soldiers by photographers assigned by their doctors or surgeons, or by photographers employed by the Army Medical Museum. The majority of these photographs demonstrating facial, head, and neck wounds have not been published since the Civil War, except for a few minor exceptions. The actual art of printing photographs in medical journals, daily newspapers, and magazines did not even begin until...

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The Maryland School for the Blind

FROM: mdschblind.org In 1853, Franklin Pierce had just been elected as the 14th President of the United States, Abe Lincoln was still a young congressman in Illinois, and most people would scoff at the very suggestion that, in the very near future, Americans would turn against Americans in a bloody Civil War. It was also the year that our school, known as the Maryland Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, first opened its doors in downtown Baltimore. Starting with a small group of students, the school had three superintendents in the first 11 years. The first superintendent was David E. Loughery who was a blind graduate of the...

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Cardiology History 101: Lessons Learned from the Civil War

By Dr. Stephen Sinatra I've had a longtime interest in the Civil War. In fact, some of my patients in Connecticut may recall how my waiting room was decorated with my collection of Civil War generals and battle scenes. So, this summer I was delighted to take in the annual Deep River Ancient Muster, a two hour event with fife and drum corps. My wife feels strong ties to this town because it was her paternal grandfather's hometown, and he often brought her there to visit his family. Little did either of us realize that this sleepy little village hosts the largest fife and drum corps muster in the world! Its impact on me was palpable. Decades...

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School for Colored Deaf and Dumb Children

Excerpted from: museumofdisability.org and niagarafallsundergroundrailroad.org Just before the Civil War, Dr. Platt H. Skinner, a pioneer educator of the disabled, operated three schools for African-American children who were blind, deaf, or both. An ardent abolitionist, Dr. Skinner was forced to move his school twice. The second school, the subject of this book, was located in Suspension Bridge, New York at a terminus of the Underground Railroad, on which Dr. Skinner may have been a conductor. Significance: From 1858-61, Dr. P.H. Skinner and his wife Jarusha Skinner kept a school in Niagara City for African American children who were deaf,...

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"BROKENHEARTED": Robert E. Lee's Last Hours

By James M. Schmidt “October 11 – Evidently sinking; less observant; pulse 120; very feeble; respiration hurried. Still recognized whoever approached him. Refuses to take anything unless presented by his physicians. It soon became evident from his rapid and feeble pulse, deepening unconsiousness and accelerated breathing, that his case was hopeless.” Those are the words of two physicians, Howard T. Barton and Robert L. Madison, both of Lexington, VA, detailing the last hours of their patient, none other than General Robert E. Lee, who died early the following day, October 12, 1870. The lives of Drs. Barton and Madison, a review...

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The Jewish Hospital in Philadelphia

Excerpted from: mikvehisrael.org By Mark I. Wolfson During the Civil War, Rev. Isaac Leeser, the Minister of Mikveh Israel, was very concerned about the wounded Jewish soldiers in the army hospitals. He obtained a hospital pass from his friend General Charles Collis, who was married to Septima Levy, formerly of Charleston. Sulzberger would accompany Leeser on hospital visits to the Jewish wounded. During the annual meeting of the Grand Lodge No. 3 of the B'nai B'rith on August 14, 1864, Sulzberger, in calling attention to the fact that three Jews within the previous six months had died in various area Christian hospitals, offered resolutions...

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The Jews' Hospital of New York

Excerpted from: jdate.com Before it became standard practice for governments to fund public hospitals, most hospitals were under religious auspices. (Thus the heroes of historical fiction are often cared for by sympathetic nuns.) Because of both religious discrimination and the specific needs of the community, it was not uncommon to find specifically Jewish hospitals in major cities. One excellent example of the development of Jewish hospitals in America is The Jews’ Hospital of New York (now known as Mount Sinai Hospital), which was founded in 1852.  Although there were nine representatives of Jewish charities who agreed to...

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