Venereal Disease

Venereal diseases were common among mid-nineteenth century troops. It has been known for hundreds of years that syphilis and gonorrhea were transmitted by sexual contact, although the term “gonorrhea” was applied to all forms of urethral discharge during the Civil War.

As the devastating complications frequently don’t appear for many years, it’s impossible to estimate the number of post-war deaths from these diseases. 102,893 soldiers were diagnosed with gonorrhea during the war and 79,589 with syphilis, but very few wartime deaths were listed as a direct result of these diseases.

The military created some successful public health programs in its effort to rid camp areas of diseased prostitutes. The women were rounded up, inspected, treated and released when their symptoms receded.

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Civil War Medications

Information for this section was contributed by The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, in particular Jane E. Boyd, Ph.D., Wood Institute Research Associate, and Robert D. Hicks, Ph.D., Measey Chair for the History of Medicine and Director of the Mütter Museum & Historical Medical Library. For more information about The College of Physicians and the Mütter Museum, visit www.collphyphil.org.

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 training in pharmacy, however, was relatively rare. There were no licensing or state board exams for pharmacists. Rather than a profession, pharmacy was usually seen as a trade, with most training gained during a two- or three-year apprenticeship. Of the 11,000 pharmacists in the country in 1860, fewer than 5 percent had any formal course work.

The war spurred the expansion and industrialization of the field. In 1860, there were 84 manufacturers of pharmaceuticals in the United States; just 10 years later, there were 300. Philadelphia was an important manufacturing center for all war materials, and medications were no exception. For instance, the firm of John Wyeth & Brother was founded in 1860 by two graduates of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. Their drugstore and small research lab grew quickly during the war to become a large wholesale business, selling beef extract and a range of medicines to the army.

Another Philadelphia company, Powers & Weightman, had introduced quinine sulfate (cinchona bark extract) for malaria treatment to the United States in the 1820s. Rosengarten & Sons was also a quinine supplier. Together, the two firms served most of the Union Army’s quinine needs. Civilian firms, though, could not give the army all the medications it required. Two Army Medical Laboratories were begun in 1863, one in New York and one in Philadelphia, to produce dozens of medicines in large quantities. Even though medications were being manufactured on an industrial scale, there was little quality control and regulation was uneven.

Army Quartermasters were originally responsible for drug supplies. Later, however, this work was transferred to the Surgeon General’s office. Medications were distributed through a network of depots and subdepots, with New York and Philadelphia serving as main depots. Volunteer organizations, most notably the United States Sanitary Commission, also aided with distribution of medical supplies. Surgeons carried small amounts of drugs in satchels for use in the field, and special medicine wagons transported larger quantities of supplies. Hospital stewards were administrators as well as pharmacists, overseeing many aspects of hospital operations in addition to compounding and distributing medications.

Some common medications included chloroform and ether used as anesthetics for surgery. Contrary to popular belief, virtually all Civil War surgical operations were performed with the patient rendered unconscious by anesthetics. Post-operation pain was often treated with morphine, a derivative of opium. Morphine was perhaps the most widely used painkiller during the war, despite its addictive qualities. Alcohol, particularly whiskey, was frequently employed as a base for liquid medicines and as a tonic. It was also the main ingredient in many popular over-the-counter patent medicines.

A nearly universal but perilous drug was calomel, a mercury-based compound, used for constipation as well as diarrhea and dysentery. Since mercury is poisonous, calomel was dangerous in large quantities. Union Surgeon General Dr. William A. Hammond banned its use in 1863, causing much controversy among army physicians.

Image: Man in Uniform of Hospital Steward with Medications. Hand-colored photograph, 1866. Courtesy of The Army Quartermaster Museum, Fort Lee, Va.

 FROM: http://www.pacivilwar150.com/ThenNow/Medicine/Medications

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The Bullet in Lincoln's Brain

After the President's death, Lincoln's body was removed to the White House. Dr. Joseph J. Woodward performed the autopsy on the bed in the room now known as the "Lincoln bedroom". Dr. Woodward was assisted by Dr. Edward Curtis. Dr. Curtis remembered: "The Surgeon General detailed me the history of the case. . . Dr. Woodward and I proceeded to open the head and remove the brain down to the track of the ball. The latter had entered a little to the left of the median line at the back of the head, had passed almost directly forwards through the center of the brain and lodged. Not finding it readily, we proceeded to remove the entire brain, when, as I was lifting the latter from the cavity of the skull, suddenly the bullet dropped out through my fingers and fell, breaking the solemn silence of the room with its clatter, into an empty basin that was standing beneath. "There it lay upon the white china, a little black mass no bigger than the end of my finger--dull, motionless and harmless, yet the cause of such mighty changes in the world's history as we may perhaps never realize."

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The Slaves of Chimborazo Hospital

From: The U.S. National Library of Medicine   African Americans, free and enslaved, provided care for wounded soldiers in Union and some Confederate hospitals. The survival of the military hospital was dependent upon their work. Employed in white-only and black-only facilities, African Americans were able to move beyond the confines of private employment to a more public environment. Hospital work represented change and opportunity for many African Americans   Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, the largest Confederate hospital, relied on the slaves of local plantation owners and hospital surgeons to fill positions such as nurses, cooks, and laundresses. With over 5000 beds in 150 buildings and tents, Chimborazo treated over 77,000 patients during the war. After the fall of Richmond in 1865, it became a hospital for black Union soldiers   James Brown McCaw was the chief administrator and surgeon-in-charge of Chimborazo Hospital during the Civil War. McCaw recognized the necessity of employing blacks at the hospital for the hospital's own survival.   Hundreds of African Americans, mostly male and enslaved, served as nurses at Chimborazo Hospital. George Cox, and a woman known only as Candis were among the few free blacks that worked there. Their wages were paid directly to them while slave owners received the wages for the work of their slaves. Enslaved African Americans working in Chimborazo had a chance to move from a private to a public work environment where they worked alongside free blacks.   "I have at this time only two hundred and fifty-six cooks and nurses [slaves] in my Hospitals, to take care of nearly 4,000 sick soldiers.  . .it will be entirely impossible to continue the hospital without them." James Brown McCaw.

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A Medical Doctor Treats Sick Horses

Horses were an essential part of the Civil War military. They were responsible for transporting food, supplies and artillery. Sickness among horses could have a devastating effect on the course of a campaign.   Confederate surgeon Herbert M, Nash was treating soldiers with malaria, when the unit's horses began to stumble and tremble.   "While the men were thus suffering with malaria, the horses became affected with blind staggers and many died. Without horses the artillery could not be moved, and they could not be replaced.   "I made autopsies and became convinced that the same or a similar poison was acting on both men and horses, and rode to Richmond, reported the facts to the Surgeon-General and appealed to him for an issue of a dozen ounces of quinine to treat the horses.   "He at first declined to issue the quinine for horses when he could not issue it for the men. I replied very earnestly that this was a most extraordinary condition which should be combated with every possible available means, and that I should be obliged to report to army headquarters the object of my visit and its results.   "Seeing the intensity of my conviction he finally relented and gave me the quinine, with which I speedily returned to the bottoms, to drench each horse as soon as the symptoms appeared with one ounce of quinine to the quart of water.   But one such dose was given to each sick horse. I am glad to relate that not another horse died, and I subsequently had them removed a mile back from the river to the pines, when the cases of staggers ceased to occur."

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Socks for Sore Feet

BUSY FINGERS: KNITTING STOCKINGS IN THE CIVIL WAR By Lynne Zacek Bassett, from Knitting Traditions, Spring 2012 South Carolina resident Mary Chesnut commented in her diary late in the summer of 1861, "I do not know when I have seen a woman without knitting in her hand." In the North as well as in the South, knitting needles clicked incessantly during the Civil War years (1861-1865). Although machine-knitted stockings were widely available, they were considered inferior to handknit stockings and wore out quickly from the rigors of long marches and insufficient washing. The call for handknitted stockings went out throughout the country. Stories of soldiers going barefoot or suffering from blistered, swollen, and infected feet from wearing their boots without stockings spurred females young and old to take up their knitting needles. Winslow Homer's engraving "Christmas Boxes in Camp—Christmas 1861," which appeared on the cover of the January 4, 1862, Harper's Weekly, depicts a group of soldiers joyfully receiving a crate of gifts, including new stockings. John L. Hayes, a wool lobbyist, called stockings" . . . the class of clothing the most indispensable for the health and comfort of our soldiers." Women and girls often enclosed notes offering Christian instruction, encouragement, or even jokes along with their stockings to the military camps and hospitals. Teenage girls, finding the idea of corresponding with a soldier romantic, wrote notes such as this one published in Mary A. Livermore's My Story of the War: "MY BRAVE FRIEND,—I have learned to knit on purpose to knit socks for the soldiers. This is my fourth pair. My name is—and I live in—. Write to me, and tell me how you like the foot-gear and what we can do for you. Keep up good courage, and by and by you will come home to us. Won't that be a grand time, though? And won't we turn out to meet you, with flowers and music, and cheers and embraces? 'There's a good time coming, boys!'" Beyond the practical accomplishment of supplying seemingly endless quantities of stockings, knitting answered the emotional need of women and girls who were desperate to participate in the struggle for their country. Woman's Work in the Civil War: A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience (1867), states, "Men did not take to the musket, more commonly than women took to the needle. . . ."—the sewing or the knitting needle."

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A Confederate Shortage of Splints

Southern doctors were particularly hard pressed to obtain sufficient medical supplies. They tried to procure reserves from Europe, but Union Naval blockades, prevalent later in the war, complicated the already desperate situation.

 

Dr. William H. Taylor recounted his experiences:

 

"Normally we were scant of medicines, and generally they were of the commoner kinds. At times, however, we were well supplied, and with excellent preparations. These times would be when captures had been made, or medicines of Northern or European manufacture had come through the blockade. The Confederate pharmaceutical laboratories worked industriously, but under great disadvantages, and their output was not surpassingly excellent.

 

"On the battlefield our stock of medical and surgical supplies was particularly condensed. Bandages were plentiful, but we seldom had splints. On one occasion I used a whole fence-rail for a broken arm, being unable to do any better. I had just finished making the rail secure when a turn in affairs forced us to take flight.

 

"My patient started to run with the rest, but the distal end of the heavy rail tilted downward, stuck in the ground, and jerked him up short at every step. I do not precisely know what became of him, but unless he had the sagacity to turn around and retreat backward I fear I was instrumental in delivering him into the hands of the enemy."

 

PHOTO: Civil War hinged splint

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Death by Diarrhea

During the Civil War, diarrhea and dysentery were known as the prevailing diseases in army camps. Union Major and Surgeon S.C. Gordon observed:

 

"The death list from disease was a fearful one in the Department of the Gulf. Fever and diarrhea, the former disabling and the latter killing, were worse foes than bullets, ten to one.

 

"It was estimated that at least ten thousand soldiers died and were buried in the Department of the Gulf, from disease of the bowels alone. It was a standing joke in our department that to be a good soldier here bowels are of more consequence than brains.

 

"The slang phrase in regard to the soldier who was discharged, was "He hasn't got the guts to stand it." The marches were long, the water poor, the weather torrid, and the rations oftentimes of poor quality. Fatigue duty under such circumstances was deadly. The bones of the best Young men of new England lie in unknown graves all over Louisiana."

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