What Can Two 19th Century Cartoons Reveal About Disease and Hysteria?

By Medicine and Science Intern Kayla Reddecliff , 12-16-14 Every few years, we read the headlines about a new, or resurgent, disease that threatens global health. Fears of transfer erupt and hysteria sets in, at least in the initial months. If someone coughs in public, I'll recoil in concern; who knows if they have this year’s contagious disease? Every stranger becomes suspect. Of course, a more rational version of myself would realize that a cough could be caused by anything. When it comes to disease, fear of air quality and of strangers has historical roots. One of the first epidemic diseases to excite worldwide hysteria was cholera....

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CSS St. Philip

From: navsource.org In the Civil War, there was steamship "Star of the West" which was used by the Confederate States Navy as "CSS Saint Philip", serving as a naval station and hospital ship. Awards, Citations and Campaign Ribbons: Civil War Medal Sidewheel Steamer: Built in 1852 as the brigantine=rigged sidewheel steamer SS San Juan by Jeremiah Simonson, Greenpoint, N. Y. for $250,000 Renamed SS Star of the West, date unknown, operated passenger service between New York and California Chartered by the Federal Government in January and April 1861 to carry reinforcements to Fort Sumter at Charleston, S.C. and to carry troops from Texas to...

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Disease in Arkansas during the Civil War

By David Sesser, Henderson State University, 4-5-16 Disease was a major problem among the armies serving in Arkansas during the Civil War. Large numbers of men living in close confines made the spread of illness likely. As many as 700,000 members of the military across the country lost their lives during the war, and approximately two-thirds of them died from disease. Outbreaks of disease were common in the state even before the beginning of the war. In 1855, a yellow fever epidemic struck Helena (Phillips County), and minor outbreaks of other diseases such as cholera and typhoid were common. The lack of major centers of population and difficulty...

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Amputations

From: fisher.k12.il.us Amputations were a common surgery performed in the civil war. Doctors said that it saved many more lives than it killed. Survival rate for amputations done in the first 24hrs. After an injury was very good with mortality. If they were done after the first 24hrs -mortality rate doubled to 50%. Surgeons tried to go as fast as possible. It’s generally a myth that most operations were performed without anesthesia with only a bullet to bite. Their procedure: 1st-they cut off blood flow with a tourniquet. 2nd-after that he’d take a scalpel and slice through the outlying tissue and flesh. 3rd-Then he’d use a hacksaw-like...

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Walter Reed and Armory Square: Saying Goodbye to 2 Historic D.C. Military Hospitals

By Diane Wendt, NMAH, 7-29-11 Editor's Note: This is the fourth post in a series featuring additional context about "So Much Need of Service": The Diary of a Civil War Nurse, a joint exhibition with the National Library of Medicine that documents the experiences of those who contributed to the Civil War effort, such as nurses Amanda Akin and Anna Lowell. As I read in the papers about the closing of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, I am reminded of the closing of another military hospital in Washington, D.C., nearly 150 years ago. From the last issue of the Armory Square Hospital Gazette, August 21, 1865: THE CLOSING OF OUR HOSPITAL Last...

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Harriet Tubman USA: Underground Railroad "Conductor", Nurse, Spy, 1820/1821 - 3-10-1913

From: civilwar.org Perhaps one of the best known personalities of the Civil War, Harriet Tubman was born into slavery as Araminta Ross, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, sometime in 1820 or 1821. As a child, Tubman was “hired out” to various masters who proved to be particularly cruel and abusive to her. As a result of a head injury caused by one of these men, she suffered from seizures and “visions” for the rest of her life, which she believed were sent from God. In 1840, Tubman’s father was freed as a result of a stipulation in his master’s will, but continued to work for his former owner’s family. Although Tubman, her mother, and her siblings...

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Paddlewheelers And Hospital Ships

From: minecreek.info When Robert Fulton designed the first working steamboat in 1807, he probably didn't realize that his invention would lead to one of the most interesting innovations of the Civil War. Steamboats revolutionized river travel during the 1800s: for the first time, people were able to travel up and down America's mighty waterways under motorized power, rather than relying on muscle or the wind. Steamboats became the fastest and most efficient way to transport people and goods up and down the United States rivers. St. Louis, Missouri, a major port on the Mississippi River, had more than 3,000 steamboat arrivals in 1850 alone. When...

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Nurses and the U.S. Navy, Prior to 1908

From: ibiblio.org Nursing, in the sense of bedside attendance of the sick and injured, has existed in the Navy from the first. Performed by enlisted crew members, the function was increasingly formalized during the 19th Century as part of the duties of the emerging hospital corpsman rates. Even in the early 1800s, there was a recommendation that women be employed as Navy nurses. Nothing much came of this until the American Civil War, when Catholic Sisters of the Holy Cross served in Navy facilities and on board the pioneer hospital ship USS Red Rover in the Mississippi River area. This was part of a great endeavor by Religious and lay women...

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"Heroes Come with Empty Sleeves"

By Matt Coletti,  7-20-15 Andrew Roy was 26 years old when Lieutenant Henry S. Farley lobbed the infamous first shot of the Civil War over Charleston Harbor on April 17, 1861. He answered President Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers by travelling north from his native Maryland and enlisting in a Pennsylvania regiment. The young man paid dearly for his zeal when he was gravely wounded at the Battle of Gaines Mill. A private in Company F, Tenth Pennsylvania Reserves, Andrew Roy and his unit rushed forward to bolster the Union line against tenacious Confederate assaults. During the charge, he was felled by a shot that destroyed the...

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Hell--In Arkansas

From: civilwarhelena.com Andrew F. Sperry, author of the 33rd Iowa Volunteer Infantry’s regimental history, gives his regiment credit for the nickname Hell-in-Arkansas. The 33rd came down the Mississippi River from Columbus, Kentucky, on the steamer John D. Perry, arriving in Helena on January 13, 1863. Sperry wrote, “About Noon on Sunday, the 13th, we reached Helena, Arkansas, which place some of the boys profanely denominated ‘Hell-in-Arkansas’– a name more intimate acquaintance, inclined to justify. . . .” The Iowa boys got off the boat in the rain and pitched their tents in a muddy abandoned garden in the middle of town. In 1860, Helena...

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Jane Boswell Moore and the Christian Commission

From: edinborough.com EIGHTH CORPS HOSPITAL, WINCHESTER, VA., August 31, 1864. REV. J. N. M'Jilton, D. D.: Dear Sir:-- On my return from daily distribution in Sheridan Hospital I received your kind letter, and hasten to thank you for the generous assistance and encouragement I have ever met with from you, in a task whose difficulties are known to few, and if aught from my pen can benefit the suffering, or appeal in their behalf, it shall not be wanting. Early in the spring we visited Wheeling, and collected some thirty boxes of stores and delicacies for the troops in the Valley, receiving also from Mr. Stewart a large assortment of books,...

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Diagnosing the Civil War

By Margaret Humphreys, 11-11-13 Germs, not guns, were the Civil War's deadliest killer. Far from the drama on the battlefield, hundreds of thousands of young men died from infectious diseases. Margaret Humphreys, Trent Professor of the History of Medicine, discusses the challenges of fighting infectious disease on the battlefield in her latest book "Marrow of Tragedy: The Health Crisis of the American Civil War." Humphreys, who has also written about yellow fever and malaria outbreaks in the American South, will discuss her research at noon Tuesday, Nov. 19, in 2002 Duke Hospital. Humphreys spoke with Ezgi Ustundag of Duke Today to discuss...

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Samuel Preston Moore, Confederate Surgeon General

From: waring.library.musc.edu Samuel Preston Moore was born in Charleston, SC, in 1813 and graduated from the Medical College of the State of South Carolina in 1834. He moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he practiced briefly before being appointed assistant surgeon in the United States Army in 1835. During his time with the US Army, Moore served at posts in Florida, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri. While serving in Texas during the Mexican War (1846-1848), Moore met Jefferson Davis, future president of the Confederacy. At the end of the Mexican War Moore returned to Missouri where he was promoted to surgeon with the rank of major in April 1849....

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War and Prosthetics: How Veterans Fought For the Perfect Artificial Limb

By Hunter Oatman-Stanford, 10-29-12 There’s something undeniably beautiful about prosthetic limbs, designed to echo the physical grace and mechanical engineering of the human body. For most people, these objects elicit some combination of squeamish discomfort and utmost respect. But far fewer of us connect those feelings to the untold generations of battle-scarred amputees whose sacrifices made prosthetics a public priority. “Patients even have doctors sign non-disclosure forms to protect potential patents.” “You hate to think that war is what drives technology, but it does,” says Kevin Carroll, the Vice President of Prosthetics for Hanger,...

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