Lincoln and His Team of Homeopaths

By Dana Ullman, Evidence Based Homeopath, 2-22-13 There is a wide body of evidence that Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) maintained a special interest in and appreciation for homeopathic medicine. It is therefore not surprising that many of Lincoln’s advisors were users of and advocates for homeopathy. Before Lincoln was elected president, in 1854 he was retained as a lawyer to prepare a state legislative proposal to charter a homeopathic medical college in Chicago.[15] Chicago was the home of the American Medical Association, which had been founded in 1847 in part to stop the growth of homeopathy, and therefore, Lincoln’s job was no simple effort. Yet...

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Steamship “Elm City,” A Peninsular Campaign Work Horse

By Patrick Browne, 7-28-12 Oddly enough, as I’ve been doing a good amount of research on the Peninsular Campaign lately, I keep coming across the name of this vessel…the Elm City. Again and again, I find it mentioned in far flung sources, various regimental histories, Sanitary Commission letters, even a journal in the collection of the historical society where I work. Her significance might at first seem trivial, but it seems this ship was all over the place during the Peninsular Campaign, transporting thousands of men, bringing them towards the front and then bringing the sick and wounded away from the Peninsula back to safety. As one of...

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The J.E. Hanger Story

From: hanger.com On June 1, 1861, 18-year-old engineering student James Edward Hanger left his family, forgoing his studies at Washington College (now Washington & Lee University), to join his brothers in the Confederate Army. On June 3, less than two days after enlisting, a cannonball tore through his leg early in the Battle of Philippi. Becoming the first amputee of the Civil War, the young Hanger survived an excruciating battlefield amputation necessary to save his life by Dr. James D. Robinson. ​James Edward Hanger’s Story “I cannot look back upon those days in the hospital without a shudder,” Hanger said. “No one can know what...

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The Hospital Transport Service

From: civilwarnavy150.blogspot.com In 1861, almost no one predicted the shear bloodshed that would be caused by the ground fighting during the Civil War.  Fortunately for thousands of soldiers, the U.S. Sanitary Commission, a volunteer group of civilian medical professionals and other well meaning citizens, did and attempted to fill critical gaps in the Army's medical system.   One of the gaps was there was no infrastructure set up to move wounded soldiers from the battlefield to hospitals in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York to receive long-term care. The Commission's executive secretary Frederick Law Olmsted (most famous...

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History of Homeopathic Nursing

by Lia Bello RN, FNP, CCH Homeopathic nursing is the nursing that takes place with patients who are being treated homeopathically or in a homeopathic hospital or homeopathic doctor’s office.   I include the work of a nurse who educates her patients in the basics of homeopathy and uses homeopathic remedies in their healthcare. The story begins hand in hand with the history of nursing–which closely follows that of women’s’ rights in America and England. The Royal London Homeopathic Hospital was founded in 1850 in Golden Square in London by Dr. Quinn–who was then King Leopold’s physician. Before that time nurses were not paid or trained...

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Examples of Trepanning During the Civil War

By Dr. Michael Echols The following are case report examples of trephining, using a trephine, or trepanning discussed in the Medical and Surgical History of the War of Rebellion during the Civil War. CHAPMAN, S. D., Private, Co. H, 92d Ohio Volunteers, received, at the battle of Chickamauga, September 23d, 1863, a gunshot, wound of the scalp, near the upper posterior angle of the right parietal, with a contusion of the bone. He was sent to Nashville, and admitted to Cumberland Hospital on the 25th. The wound produced little inconvenience until October 4th when grave head symptoms, such as delirium and convulsions, supervened. There was hemiplegia...

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The North vs. the South: Conditions at Civil War Hospitals

By Barbra Mann Wall, Kathleen Rogers, and Ann Kutney-Lee In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: The American Civil War resulted in the death of nearly one million Americans  At the beginning of the war, both Union and Confederate medical departments entered the conflict unprepared. Initially, care was provided in existing buildings such as schools, churches, almshouses, hotels, and homes; but as the war progressed, the armies constructed new hospitals. Poor diet, lack of ventilation, inadequate clothing, exposure, and unsanitary conditions all contributed to high rates of disease and poor patient survival rates....

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Nurses From the Holy Sisters and Nuns: Angels in War

By John E. Carey, The Washington Times The Roman Catholic nuns who went to war (American Civil War 1861-1865) to help out as nurses were the most highly praised and prized of the female attendants. Doctors, Sanitary Commission members and the men themselves generals to privates commented on the efficiency of the nuns. Many of the nuns did not come from nursing backgrounds or formal nursing training, but they had learned the “basics” of care in their large Catholic families. Many were fairly well educated, for women of the time. Some were teachers. Above all, the nuns were quiet, cooperative and, to use a more modern term, “low maintenance.”...

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“To Make Something Out of the Dying in This War” : The Civil War and the Rise of American Medical Science

By Shauna Devine In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Editor’s note: The following represents the acceptance speech for the Watson Brown Prize for the best book published on the Civil War era in the calendar year 2014. Tad Brown, president of the Watson-Brown Foundation, awarded the prize to Shauna Devine for her book Learning from the Wounded, published by the University of North Carolina Press. These remarks were given at the annual banquet of the Society of Civil War Historians (SCWH), held during the Southern Historian Association annual meeting on November 13, 2015, in Little Rock, Arkansas. The SCWH judges...

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With the Army of the Cumberland

By Mrs. Sophia McClelland It was in the early autumn of 1861; regiments of soldiers from the North and West were daily passing through Louisville, Kentucky, to points below on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. I drove down to the depot, and on passing out of the yard from the train of cars, noticed several of the soldiers lying on the platform, some of whom seemed very ill; I had them removed to some vacant rooms over a warehouse on the opposite corner from the depot, Broadway and Ninth Street : then, driving as rapidly as possible to my residence, gathered up as many blankets, comfortables, and pillows as the carriage could hold, and...

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