George Townsend Describes the Wounded on the Peninsula

From: civilwarhome.com [George Alfred Townsend was only twenty when he began to report the Civil War for the New York Herald, but he quickly established himself as one of the most brilliant of all the many war correspondents.   There are few more graphic accounts of wounds, disease and death than those from his gifted pen.] It was evening, as I hitched my horse to a stake near-by, and pressed Up to the receptacle for the unfortunates. Sentries enclosed the pen, walking to-and-fro with loaded muskets; a throng of officers and soldiers had assembled to gratify their curiosity; and new detachments of captives came in hourly, encircled by...

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Disease Killed Many Civil War Troops

By Marlene Gantt, 6-20-14 This year's theme for the World Health Organization is vector-borne diseases, with a first-time focus on dengue, according to the Division of Vector-Borne Diseases (DVBD) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC). Vector-borne diseases are bacterial and viral diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, ticks and fleas. Mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and yellow fever have plagued parts of this country for decades. Apparently dengue fever, that is making a comeback, also was around during the Civil War. Union soldiers during the Civil War became sick with mosquito-borne diseases as they traveled into...

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Alfred Baring Garrod (1819–1907) and Rheumatoid Arthritis

From: rheumatology.oxfordjournals.org Garrod was born in Ipswich. He was the son of Robert Garrod, himself the son of a tenant farmer who had founded a successful firm of auctioneers and estate agents. Alfred decided to follow a medical career. He was initially apprenticed to Charles Chambers Hammond at Ipswich Hospital but moved to University College Hospital, where he qualified MB in 1842 and MD in 1843. He was then appointed clinical assistant to the chemical department, where he ‘shall be occupied chiefly in the analysis of morbid fluids and other substances occurring in cases in the hospital and sent to him by the medical officer’. He...

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Mary Harris Thompson: Pioneer Doctor and Educator of Women in the Medical Professions

By Maggie MacLean, 6-10-14 Dr. Mary Harris Thompson (1829–1895) was one of the first women to practice medicine in Chicago, and by some accounts the first female surgeon in the US. She was founder, head physician and surgeon of the Chicago Hospital for Women and Children, founder of the Women's Medical College, the first medical school for women in the Midwest, and Chicago's first nursing school. Early Years Mary Harris Thompson was born April 15, 1829 in Fort Ann, New York. She began her studies at a nearby school, then transferred to Fort Edward Institute in Fort Edward, New York, and then to West Poultney Academy in Vermont. While at West...

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What Happened to Civil War Soldiers After the War?

By:Chris, 6-6-11 Much has been written about the hardships of soldiering during the Civil War. However, what of the soldier when he returned home after the war? How did he reintegrate into society and what was left waiting for him? By the 1880s soldiers began to reminiscence about the war in memoirs and regimental histories. But yet there was still a population in both the North and South that drifted from soldier home to soldier home, from town to town, jail to jail and some (perhaps many) living their last days in insane asylums. Most returned home, picked up the pieces, and moved on. But some could never find that peace. The first step...

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Field Hospitals: An Overview

From: encyclopedia.com No other part of the battlefield represented such an odd mixture of hope and terror as the field hospital. The writings of veterans almost universally picture it as a place to be feared and avoided if at all possible. To the men who survived the conflict, hospitals presented a gruesome compendium of the horrors of the war, second only to the sight of torn, bloated, lifeless bodies on the field of battle. Yet the field hospital's staff, medicines, facilities, and surgeons were the only hope desperately wounded men had to save life and limb. It was predictable that there would be contradictory views of the hospital. Only...

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Scurvy

From: faqs.org Scurvy, now known to be caused by a lack of vitamin C, is one of the world's oldest and most devastating deficiency diseases. Historians have been describing scurvy since ancient times primarily because the disease so often seemed to attack invading armies, sailors on long sea voyages, explorers, and even crusaders. For example, it was scurvy, rather than savage storms or hostile natives, that killed many of the crewmen who sailed with Vasco da Gama (1469-1524) in 1498 and with Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) in 1519. Scurvy begins innocently enough, usually with mild fatigue, bleeding gums, and hemorrhagic bruises on the skin....

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Medications

From: pacivilwar150.com In the Civil War era, many of the medications we now take for granted did not exist. There were no antibiotics and hardly any vaccines, as no one knew that germs (microorganisms) caused many diseases. Nevertheless, pharmaceuticals played an important role in Civil War medical care. In 1861, before the start of the war, there were only six colleges of pharmacy in the United States. The first, the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, had been founded in 1821. The pharmacy school curriculum included chemistry and medical botany, as many medicines of the time were derived from plants and taken in liquid or pill form. Formal...

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Dr. Hunter Holmes McGuire, M.D., CSA (1835-1900)

From: ehistory.osu.edu John W. Schildt in his biography of Hunter McGuire summed up the doctor as such: "When people needed to talk, he listened. Those who knew him said Dr. Hunter McGuire made you feel that you were the most important person in the world." Another quote that describes the Winchester physician is "Make not patients of your friends -but friends of your patients." Such a man was Hunter Holmes McGuire, a native of Winchester, Virginia in the Northern end of the Shenandoah Valley. Born on October 11, 1835, at age 22 he was already a professor and full doctor. An impressive man, tall -- almost 6'4" -- thin, and handsome with black...

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An Opinion of the Civil War Surgeon

From: ehistory.osu.edu "The surgery of these battle-fields has been pronounced butchery. Gross misrepresentations of the conduct of medical officers have been made and scattered broadcast over the country, causing deep and heart-rending anxiety to those who had friends or relatives in the army, who might at any moment require the services of a surgeon. It is not to be supposed that there were no incompetent surgeons in the army. It is certainly true that there were; but these sweeping denunciations against a class of men who will favorably compare with the military surgeons of any country, because of the incompetency and short-comings of a...

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The Empty Sleeve - Life and Limb: The Toll of the American Civil War

From: nlm.nih.gov A large proportion of disabled veterans in both the North and the South did not wear artificial limbs. Many did not even apply for the money they were eligible to collect because of negative attitudes to the idea of charity. Moreover, pinning up an empty sleeve or trouser leg, instead of hiding the injury with a prosthesis, made their sacrifice visible. Displaying an “honorable scar” in this way, especially during and immediately after the war, helped amputees to assert their contribution to the cause. Veterans who had lost an arm learned to use their remaining limb instead, and could utilize specially-designed devices...

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Dover's Powder

From: en.wikipedia.org Dover's powder was a traditional medicine against cold and fever developed by Thomas Dover. It is no longer in use in modern medicine, but may have been in use at least through the 1960s. A 1958 source describes Dover's Powder as follows: "Powder of Ipecacuanha and Opium (B.P., Egyp. P., Ind. P.). Pulv. Ipecac. et Opii; Ipecac and Opium Powder (U.S.N.F.); Dover's Powder; Compound Ipecacuanha Powder. Prepared ipecacuanha, 10 g., powdered opium 10 g., lactose 80 g. It contains 1% of anhydrous morphine. Dose: 320 to 640 mg. (5 to 10 grains). Many foreign pharmacies include a similar powder, sometimes with potassium sulphate...

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Susan Blackford Nurses The Wounded At Lynchburg

From: civilwarhome.com The South had no organization comparable to the Sanitary Commission, but a Women's Relief Society dedicated itself to collecting money to help sick and wounded soldiers, and thousands of Southern women volunteered for, nursing duty. Mrs. Arthur Hopkins for example not only contributed some $200,000 to hospital work but went to the front and was wounded at Seven Pines; others, like Mrs. Ella Newsom and Miss Kate Cumming, worked indefatigably in the makeshift hospitals of the Confederacy; Mrs. Phoebe Yates Pember-superintendent of a division of the vast Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond-was tireless in hospital and nursing...

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Chimborazo Hospital: Largest Military Hospital in the World

By Maggie MacLean, 10-10-15 Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, Virginia essentially functioned as a village, complete with bathhouse, soap factory, morgues, and a bakery. Phoebe Yates Pember was one of the first women to serve as a hospital matron during the Civil War. Her memoirs describe in vivid detail her experiences as one of the first women to enter the previously all-male field of medicine in the Confederacy. A Hospital on a Hill Several million men went off to war in the early 1860s. They fell sick with disease and died from battle wounds by the hundreds of thousands. The Confederate government was not prepared for the sudden burden...

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