Civil War Sutures

By Rita, Oconto County WIGenWeb Coordinator After the war, 1861 - 1865, the medical doctors from North and South came together in an attempt to exchange what they had learned. This information was to be used in the emergency treatment of civilians. One glaring difference was the substantially higher number of ancestors who survived major surgery in the South than in the North, where the post treatment infection rate caused high numbers of fatalities. The doctors of the North (often called "sawbones" for all the amputations done) used imported silk thread for stitching wounds. It was strong, light and "slick" , making use much easier during...

Read More

Post-Operative Hemorrhage

by Janet King, RN, BSN, CCRN. Doctors classified major bleeding after the surgical procedure as "primary", "secondary" or "intermediary." Primary hemorrhage was defined as a major escape of blood occurring from a ruptured blood vessel(s) within 24 hours of receipt of a wound. Intermediary hemorrhage was defined as occurring "from 24 hours until the establishment of suppuration on the fifth or sixth day" from receipt of wound. Secondary hemorrhage was described as occurring from the sixth day to even months after the injury or surgery. Secondary hemorrhage was usually caused by an infection which had disintegrated the blood vessel�s wall,...

Read More

The Nuns of the Battlefield: How Sisters Nursed the Wounded During the Civil War

by Thomas J. Craughwell, Jun 10, 2011 For the next four years — 2011 through 2015 — the United States will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, so brace yourself for a blizzard of books, articles and documentaries about battlefields and generals. But there is one story that may be overlooked in all the hoopla — the more than 600 Catholic nuns who nursed the wounded, the sick and the dying throughout the war. In the mid-19th century, Catholics were almost universally despised in America. Typical of the time was an editorial published in The New York Times, which linked Catholicism — “popery,” the newspaper called it — with slavery...

Read More

Gangrene

by Janet King, RN, BSN, CCRN. Gangrene [Hospital gangrene; Moist gangrene; Dry gangrene; Mortification]:Civil War surgeons were often indiscriminate in categorizing the patients who had gangrene. Some stuck with the term they were most familiar with, so determining how many cases of gangrene, and of what type, is difficult. Today's doctors classify gangrene into 3 main types. The following examples are those which occurred during the Civil War, although the doctors of that era did not know the precise cause. Moist Gangrene: This results from the loss of blood circulation due to a sudden stoppage of blood flow - i.e. accident that destroys...

Read More

Harewood General Hospital (Corcoran Farm), Washington, D.C.

(from medicalmuseum.mil) As the war progressed, Washington became home to several hospitals. Some were new constructions while others were in renovated buildings. Harewood Hospital was located on 7th Street, NW, near the Soldiers Home. Harewood was supervised by Surgeon Reed Bontecou. It held 2,000 beds in the permanent wards. At one time 312 hospital tents holding 1,872 beds were also on the grounds. (from: civilwardc.org) Located on the rolling hills of the Corcoran Farm, the hospital was built in a "V" pavilion style. A few wooden barracks and a brick farm house were incorporated into the hospital arrangements. The hospital consisted of...

Read More

Hospital Nuns: The Sisters of Mercy in the Civil War

By Mary Pat Kelly Excerpted from: irishamerica.com The Sisters of Mercy were the first women to go with Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War in 1854. They worked with her to make nursing more effective and to improve sanitary conditions. In America, the Sisters of Mercy would make their impact on the battlefields in the Civil War, beginning a legacy in health care that is still going strong today. “Veritable angels of mercy” are the words President Abraham Lincoln used to describe the nuns he saw tending wounded soldiers at one of the 25 military hospitals hurriedly set up around Washington to receive the more than 20,000 casualties...

Read More

Cupping and Bloodletting

From: worldturndupsidedown.blogspot.com     This painful procedure was performed during the Civil War on Sarah Morgan, a wealthy refugee from Baton Rouge after a wagon accident left her unable to walk. She described the experience in her journal, which has recently been published as “The Civil War Diary of a Southern Woman,” as follows: “I was interrupted yesterday morning by Mrs Badger who wished to apply a few dry cups to my back, to which I quietly submitted, and was unable to move afterwards with[out] pain, as a reward for my patience.” When the doctor visited her later, she wrote of the pain she experienced, the large amount...

Read More

Collector of Nursing Artifacts Featured At National Gallery

By Bryan Shupe Physician Liaison and Registered Nurse at Bayhealth Medical Center Chris Foard has been a collector of historical artifacts for over a decade, focusing his searches on the American Civil War and the evolution of the medical field in the United States. With over 3,000 pieces in his personal collection, Foard currently has four pieces of history from that collection featured in the National Gallery of Art, located on the National Mall in Washington DC. A veteran of the United States Army, Foard served his country for four years and received an education as a civil engineer in the service. After working for an engineering firm...

Read More

The Cost of Civil War Provisions

From: foodtimeline.org In all places and periods, supply and demand dictate market prices. Retail food price comparisons between the North and South during the Civil War are complicated because they had different money and inflation rates at different points during the War. Context is key. Most of the American Civil War was fought on Southern soil. Historians confirm Union forces specifically targeted Confederate food supply to gain physical advantage. Transportation blockades (railroads, rivers, ports), supply reallocation (commandeering forts and merchants inventory) and farm destruction (pillage, burning) proved effective. Food was scarce;...

Read More

Cupping

By Lori Eggleston Cupping is an ancient practice which was very popular during the period of “Heroic Medicine” prior to the Civil War.  Though cupping was beginning to wane in popularity at the start of the war, it was still practiced. Cupping involves heating small cups, usually made of glass, and then placing them on the skin.  As the cup cools, a vacuum is created inside and the skin is drawn up inside the cup to form a raised blister.  In dry cupping, the cup would be left on the skin for several minutes.  This was thought to promote better blood flow to the area where the cups were applied.  In wet cupping, small...

Read More

Pyemia ("Pus in the Blood"); ("Blood infection")

by Janet King, RN, BSN, CCRN. This disease affected some 2,818 men - killing all but 71 of them! Often the soldier would seem to be recovering well. Suddenly his fever would go up, he would exhibit symptoms of dehydration, his wound would draining a "watery, thin and foul smelling fluid," and the sutured area would separate. Death generally followed in a few days. Doctors were beginning to regard this "disease" as a "contagion arising spontaneously in any putrefaction of wound products." They were also beginning to believe that it could be spread by the surgeons hands and recommended greater cleanliness in surgery. 1860's Treatments:Tonics,...

Read More

Gross Medicine: Maggots, Leeches and Dirt

Hundreds Of Years Ago, Maggots, Leeches, And Dirt Were “Medicine Cabinet” Staples. Now Old Is New Again: Ready To Try Them? By Maia Weinstock and Mark Bregman | October 19 , 1991 You're lying in the emergency room, in agonizing pain from an open gash on your leg. You crashed your bike weeks ago, but the wound has gotten worse — black, festering, and foul-smelling. Now you have acute gangrene — "flesh-eating" microscopic bacteria are feeding on your live tissue. What would it take to destroy the bacteria causing your leg to rot? Well, how do maggots sound? That's your doctor's recommendation: unleash dozens of tiny worm-like fly larvae to...

Read More

The Confederate Cavalry and the "Great Glanders Epizootic"

From: gravegarden.org Horses and mules were essential to the operation of the Civil War, and vast numbers of animals were needed. Lynchburg, one of the four quartermaster depots for the Confederacy, was supplying General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. In 1863, following the Battle of Brandy Station, the Confederate Army ended its practice of private ownership of cavalry mounts and began to supply the necessary horses. Thousands of horses and mules were quartered in Lynchburg, in the Quartermaster's stables at the "fairgrounds," which included the present-day E.C. Glass High School campus. Over a 15 month period, of the 6875 horses...

Read More

"The Widow of the South" by Robert Hicks: A Tale of Carrie McGavock

Book Review By Teresa Wasson, The Associated Press FRANKLIN, Tenn. -- The story of Carrie McGavock was too good to be left untold but too incomplete to be told as history. When music publisher Robert Hicks couldn't find a professional writer to tell what he considered the intriguing story of plantation mistress Carrie McGavock, he wrote the book himself, titling it "The Widow of the South." McGavock was the mistress of a Southern plantation when the Civil War arrived at her door Nov. 30, 1864. The Battle of Franklin turned her mansion, Carnton, into a Confederate field hospital and McGavock into a nurse to thousands of injured soldiers lying,...

Read More

Prisoners of War

by Brooke C. Stoddard and Daniel P. Murphy, Ph.D. For the most part, soldiers who were taken prisoner by both sides were relatively well treated. This was the Victorian era, after all, and chivalry still had its place during wartime. More importantly, however, the soldiers of the North and South weren't fighting some unknown, foreign enemy; they were fighting people who spoke their language and had been their own countrymen. To abuse another American — even a rebellious one — wasn't in the nature of most men, though there were exceptions. In addition, every soldier knew there was a strong possibility he could be taken prisoner, so it behooved...

Read More

Maggots: Friend or Foe?

by Janet King, RN, BSN, CCRN. Surgeon C.S. Wood of the 66th NY Volunteers wrote of the problems his amputation patients had with flies and the maggots they produced in the hospital wards - "In 12 hours the wound is literally covered with maggots and in 24 hours the stump looks as though a swarm of bees had settled into it." Another surgeon recorded - "The maggot does damage in the wound, not by attacking living tissue, but by the annoyance created by the continued sensation of crawling." The Union doctors and care givers tried their best to eradicate the flies through the use of netting and injections of chloroform onto the stumps of amputees....

Read More

About Treating Wounds in the Civil War

By Peggy Deland The American Civil War had a tremendous death toll--nearly 620,000 soldiers died as a direct result of the war. Most of these soldiers died as a result of illness, rather than injury. Those who died of their injuries usually succumbed to infection, made far worse by the lack of cleanliness in camps. Although the care given to wounded soldiers was primitive by today's standards, the loss of life would have been much higher without treatment. The Civil War lasted four years, from April 1861 through April 1865. This was long before the discovery of antibiotics, and medicine remained focused on balancing the body's "humors." Most...

Read More

History of PTSD

From: historyofptsd.wordpress.com Before PTSD was conceptualized in the United States, Swiss, German, French, and Spanish physicians identified the disorder. Bentley (2005) noted that the symptoms of PTSD were first named by Swiss military physicians in 1678. “‘Nostalgia’ was the term they used to define a condition characterized by melancholy, incessant thinking of home, disturbed sleep or insomnia, weakness, loss of appetite, anxiety, cardiac palpitations, stupor, and fever”. Around the same time, German doctors termed these symptoms “heimweh,” or “homesickness”. Later, French doctors termed the symptoms, “maladie du pays,” and the Spanish...

Read More

Civil War Dressings

by Janet King, RN, BSN, CCRN. After the wounds had been assessed by the surgeon, cleaned and surgery performed if needed, some type of dressing was applied. These dressings were meant to protect the wound against "contamination" but in reality, probably hurt more than helped. Lint was a common dressing material. It was obtained from supposedly clean cloth. The lint was often applied wet, then covered with a piece of gauze muslin and held in place by an adhesive plaster. The dressing would then be kept wet as some felt it essential to keep the wound "clean and sweet." Neither the lint nor the water nor the caregiver's hands were sterile and...

Read More

Civil War Bloodletting

By Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein A patient suffering from an infectious illness characterized by a high fever, a rapid pulse, and delirium was considered to have an inflammation caused by congestion of the blood vessels and excited tissues. In the terminology of the time this was called a "sthenic" disease. The category included such illnesses as typhoid fever and pneumonia. Doctors believed that the way to reduce the inflammation was by depleting the fluids. This could be done through bloodletting by cutting a vein or an artery or, less drastically, by using leeches to suck a smaller amount of blood. Bleeding was practiced infrequently by the...

Read More

"Medicines for the Union Army: The United States Army Laboratories During the Civil War" by George Winston Smith

(Book Review) It wasn't only combat that killed during the Civil War! Among white Federalist troops alone, there were 1,213,685 cases of malaria, 139,638 cases of typhoid fever, 67,762 cases of measles, 61,202 cases of pneumonia, 73,382 cases of syphilis, and 109,202 cases of gonorrhea between May 1, 1861 and June 30, 1866. (Statistics for Negro troops covered less than three years of the Civil War period.) Preventative medicine at the time had little more to offer than quinine and a few disinfectants. There was no real understanding of the germ theory of disease. But "Medicines for the Union Army: The United States Army Laboratories During...

Read More

Dr. Jacob Mendes Da Costa and "Irritable Heart"

From jeffline.jefferson.edu Jacob Mendes Da Costa’s research, writings, and teaching were influential in the development of internal medicine as a specialty. However, his greatest contribution to American medicine lay in his clinical instruction at various Philadelphia institutions. Born 7 February 1833 on the Island of St. Thomas in the West Indies, Jacob Mendes Da Costa received his early education in Dresden, Germany, before coming to Jefferson Medical College. A graduate of the class of 1852, Da Costa received postgraduate education in Europe - mainly Paris but also Vienna. Upon his return from Europe, Da Costa began his practice in Philadelphia...

Read More

Bloodletting (Venesection) During the Civil War

By Dr. Michael Echols After reviewing an inventory list of medical supplies from a N.Y. military hospital at the end of the War, the presence of scarificators in the inventory lead to this investigation of evidence in the military literature of bloodletting being in use during the War.   From examination of the literature gathered from the Medical and Surgical History citations, venesection was indeed practiced during the Civil War, but was rapidly being abandoned as the War years progressed and knowledge of medicine and bleeding wounds increased. In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America, many symptoms of illness were believed to...

Read More

Civil War Pharmacy: A History of Drugs, Drug Supply and Provision, and Therapeutics for the Union and Confederacy by Michael Flannery

Review by Gregory Higby In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: As is often the case today, a work's subtitle tells the full story of its contents. While Michael Flannery gives attention to the traditional aspects of pharmacy—the making of medicines—he focuses on the drugs themselves and their use. Forty years ago, when George Winston Smith wrote Medicines for the Union Army, history of pharmacy, like the discipline it studied, was limited to the production and distribution of medicines. Today the field of pharmacy includes pharmacology, therapeutics, and drug utilization, an expansion reflected in Civil War Pharmacy....

Read More