Civil War Era Medicine in Missouri

By Thomas Sweeney, retired physician and long-time avocational Civil War historian 

From: ozarkscivilwar.org

By January of 1862 St. Louis emerged as the center of military medicine not only in Missouri but also in the Mississippi River Valley. Over crowding of hospitals in St. Louis had been considerably decreased by treating less serious cases in camp and regimental hospitals and sending more serious cases to the city. Convalescing patients were also sent to camps outside of the city. St. Louis had 2,300 beds in the general hospital and 200 to 300 more in the City and Sister’s of Charity Hospitals. Separate isolation hospitals were established for smallpox patients and another for measles. During the spring of 1863 military medicine in St. Louis expanded even further. Medicines, hospital stores, dressings, bedding and clothing were being manufactured in a government facility in St. Louis. A large amphitheatre in the old fairgrounds in Benton Barracks was turned into a 2,500 bed hospital second only to the Lincoln Hospital in Washington which had a 2,575 bed capacity.

By 1864 there were military hospitals located in Jefferson City, Springfield, Kansas City Missouri, and Rolla (at the terminus of the SW branch of the Pacific R.R.) along with Tipton and Sedalia. In southeast Missouri a hospital was located at the southern terminus of the Iron Mountain RR in Ironton. Serious wounded from battle of Springfield through Price’s Raid in the fall of 1864 could be taken care of in various hospitals in Kansas City, around the Ozarks or to one of the hospitals in St. Louis. Battles in isolated areas in the Ozarks such as Newtonia (September 30, 1862 and October 28, 1864) resulted in the wounded being cared for in buildings or tent hospitals surrounding the battlefield.

As had been true for the previous two years, Missouri State Guard and Confederate forces operating within the state provided only the most basic medical services. They setup temporary makeshift hospitals in nearby structures during battles, but as they failed to control any territory permanently their serious wounded were left behind. The highly mobile Southern guerrillas and opportunistic bushwhackers who roamed the state until the very end of the war relied heavily on friendly civilians for care of their sick and wounded. The effectiveness of this care would be difficult to determine. Unfortunately, it led to retaliation upon the civilians by the Unionists.

The fortunes of war were such that the story of medical care in Missouri is really the story of the Union side. Thanks to the efforts of the federal and state governments, civilian relief organizations, and civilian volunteers, medical care in Missouri equaled that of any other state during the conflict. Although authorities were caught off guard and almost overwhelmed by events in 1861, medical care increased steadily from 1862 onwards, until by war’s end it was state of the art for that period of history.

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Matrons

By Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein

In both the North and the South, women with the title "matron" worked in general hospitals behind the lines. However, the two sides varied in their concept of a matron's duties.

The position of matron was established i the Confederacy by legislation passed on November 25, 1862. Each hospital was to have two chief matrons to supervise the entire "domestic economy" of the hospital. There were also supposed to be two assistant matrons in charge of the laundry and patients' clothing, and two ward matrons for each ward of 100 patients, who made sure that  each patient received suitable bedding, food, and medicine.

In practice, the number of matrons depended upon the size of the hospital and the willingness of the doctor in charge to appoint them. Their duties also varied, involving many kinds of hands-on hospital work in addition to their supervisory roles. Matrons often cooked for patients with special diet needs, making toddies, eggnog, or recipes that some soldier's mother used to make, in order to appeal to delicate appetites. Matrons sometimes fed the concoctions to the patients as well. In many hospitals matrons controlled the key to the medicinal liquor supply, dispensing whiskey only by proper prescription, Matrons sometimes did the same tasks as nurses, such as washing the hands, faces and wounds of patients. In addition, matrons comforted patients, offered spiritual counsel, sat with the dying, and wrote to patients' families to inform them about the soldier's location or, if necessary, his demise.

Matrons worked long hours, in some cases from 4:00 a.m. until midnight. Many matrons became ill from exhaustion, as well as disease, and had to leave the hospital to recuperate. Among the most famous of the Confederate matrons wee Phoebe Pember, at Chimborazo Hospital No. 2 in Richmond, and Ella Newsom, Fannie Beers, and Kate Cumming, who worked at various locations with the Army of Tennessee. Pember, Beers, and Cumming later wrote books about their experiences.

Officially, as of 1863, one Union matron was to be appointed for every twenty beds to perform the duty in hospitals that laundresses performed in the field. However, the term "matron" was also used in other contexts to apply to women working as nurses, cooks, chambermaids, or ward supervisors, a position similar to what Confederates meant by the term. Jane Woolsey, for example, seems to have served as a matron in the supervisory sense.

The position of matron evidently was more important and prestigious for the Confederates. Although some people objected to matrons, as they did to the presence of women in hospitals in any capacity, patients generally seem to have benefited from matrons' care.

IMAGE: Jane Stuart Woolsey

From: "The Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine"

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The Four Year Itch

By James M. Schmidt

“There were two things that stuck closer than a brother; that was the itch and body lice or greyback as they were politely called…I had a bad case of the itch… it became very bad; so much that my hands were swollen and my fingers stood apart. Sores and yellow blisters came between them and they ran corruption. I could scarcely touch anything, my hands were so sore.”-Pvt. Milton Asbury Ryan, Co. B, 14th Mississippi, CSA

In his recent article, “The ‘Army Itch’: A Dermatological Mystery of the American Civil War” (Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, August 2006, Vol. 55, No. 2, pp. 302-8), Thomas G. Cropley, M.D., provides an excellent review of this chronic, painful, and epidemic skin condition that plagued Private Ryan and thousands of other soldiers, North and South. The article includes a chronology of the disease, extensive excerpts from the writings of period physicians who saw and treated the disease, and a description of the treatments used.

[Note that since the time this article first appeared in The Civil War News in October 2006, Dr. Cropley has authored another interesting article: "Dermatology and skin disease in the American Civil War," Dermatol Nurs, 2008 Feb;20(1):29-33.]

Dr. Cropley received his M.D. from the University of Virginia and completed his residency at Harvard University. (At this writing) he is currently Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and director of the school’s Dermatology Residency Program. In addition to his own clinical and teaching work, Dr. Cropley is also deputy editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. Earlier this year at their annual meeting, the History of Dermatology Society awarded him its Samuel J. Zakon Award (First Prize) for his research and paper on army itch.

Dr. Cropley (who is named “Thomas” after Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson) has been interested in the Civil War for a long time and his interest in Civil War medicine is an outgrowth of his interest in medical history in general. “I grew up in West Virginia, very close to the battlefields of the 1861 Kanawha Valley campaign,” he told me. “My grandfather, an unreconstructed ‘Reb,’ used to take me out hunting for artifacts like Minie balls and the like.”Dr. Cropley also speaks a number of foreign languages (including Gaelic!) and plays the bagpipe competitively.

Army itch, referred to as “camp itch” in the Confederate army, was a disorder that baffled military physicians of the day. The “mystery” is that medical opinion at the time was divided over the true nature of the disease: some thought it to be epidemic scabies, others thought it a unique malady, and still others considered it to be a mix of the many skin conditions that plagued the armies due to poor hygiene. There was no dispute over the seriousness of the itch: at best it was a nuisance, but Cropley notes that it often reduced the effectiveness and morale of afflicted troops to a dangerous degree.

In the main, Dr. Cropley’s paper includes accounts on army itch drawn from the writings of nearly twenty army surgeons and civilian physicians. The excerpts are drawn from period publications such as Medical and Surgical Reporter and the Confederate States Medical and Surgical Journal. Reading the accounts gives witness to several important characteristics of the disease: first, the itch was debilitating – in addition to painful lacerations, the incessant itching was exhausting in itself; second, many of the physicians noted that the disease spread to the local population after an army passed through; third, most soldiers waited too late to approach their medical team about the disease.

“We see this nowadays, too,” Dr. Cropley told me. “Scabies is insidious. The itching is tolerable at first, and patients generally do not seek medical attention. Later, the itch becomes maddening, and it is at that point that patient seeks care.”He suspects that many soldiers with itch did not report for surgeon's call, as they were unlikely to be relieved from duty or treated in many cases.

In the article, Dr. Cropley notes some of the treatments for the itch, including sulphur-based alkaline ointments or washes, to which were added cooling or astringent compounds. Arsenicals and mercury were also used, and while effective were almost certainly toxic. Short on sulphur due to its use in the manufacture of gunpowder, the Confederates established an interesting clinical experiment at Richmond’s Chimborazo Hospital to evaluate alternative treatments. Topical application of strong decoctions of native plants such as poke root, broom straw, and slippery elm were found to be helpful.

Dr. Cropley also told me that the military’s itchy encounters did not end with the Civil War. “Epidemic scabies always follows the population disruptions of wartime,” he said. “The United States Army has had an ongoing scabies eradication program in Kosovo and Bosnia for the last 10 years or so. I have heard from colleagues that Afghanistan and Iraq have significant scabies as well.”Dr. Cropley added that these modern outbreaks are mostly in the local population and not in military personnel, but they still require the attention of Army dermatologists attending to civilians.

Dr. Cropley told me there are many other interesting dermatological mysteries to be found in studying the Civil War. To him, one of the more interesting stories regards General Henry W. Halleck's itchy elbows. “Halleck apparently had the disconcerting habit of rubbing his elbows, especially when under stress,” he told me. “Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles in particular found this annoying and even commented on it in his diary.”

So why did Halleck rub his elbows? “Itchy elbows can be due to a number of causes, and the scratching behavior can be a habit rather than a response to an actual itch,” Dr. Cropley told me. He added: “Halleck's medical record is pretty short, but the thing that caught my eye was his statement in a fall 1864 letter that he was having his annual trouble with itchy, watery eyes.”

Dr. Cropley believes that Halleck might have been suffering from seasonal allergic keratoconjunctivitis (“hay fever”). “Hay fever is an atopic disease and is frequently accompanied by atopic dermatitis,” he told me. “Atopic diseases often worsen under stress, so I think, but I can't prove, that Halleck had atopic dermatitis as the cause of his itchy elbows.”

Learning more about Halleck’s mysterious condition sounds like a historical itch that Dr. Cropley is destined to scratch, and I’m predicting another award-winning paper about a Civil War-related dermatological story in his future.

[Many thanks are due to Mr. Michael Gay, Ann Arbor, Michigan, for kindly granting permission to use the opening quote, which appears in his great grandfather’s unpublished memoir, “Experience of a Confederate Soldier in Camp and Prison in the Civil War, 1861-1865.”]

FROM: The Civil War News – “Medical Department” – October 2006

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Women Nurses in the Civil War

 From: carlisle.army.mil

Before the Civil War, most nurses in the United States were male. Women in
the U.S. knew of Florence Nightingale, a British nurse who successfully served
on the battlefield, but social taboos prevented well-to-do women from working
outside the home. A "working woman" was an object of pity or scorn in Victorian
America.

At the beginning of the war, Union Army leadership realized that they needed
more medical staff and decided to accept women nurses to fill the gap. Dorothea
Dix was chosen as the first superintendent of U.S. Army nurses in June 1861. Dix
insisted that her nurses be between thirty-five and fifty years old, in good
health, of high moral standards, not too attractive, and willing to dress
plainly. Over three thousand nurses served the Union through Dix's appointments. 
Northern women also found ways to volunteer as nurses without going through
Dix. Regional aid societies would certify women as official nurses if they had
already proven their worth as volunteers in Union hospitals, regardless of Dix's
guidelines. Some experienced female nurses served, such as Catholic nuns, but
any matronly, responsible woman could qualify during the Civil War. The
escalating war required still more medical staff, and in 1863 the Union Army
allowed surgeons to choose their own nurses.

Army surgeons and other male staff were not always happy to see women
entering their domain. Without authority over hospitals or other medical staff,
women nurses found ways to accomplish their goals despite male resistance. When
they could not cajole, reason, or shame Army doctors into improving conditions
for the patients, the women worked around them.

In addition to providing medical care, the women nurses comforted and fed
patients, wrote letters, read, and prayed. They managed supplies and staffed
hospital kitchens and laundries. African-American nurses were often confined to
menial labor jobs, ordered to work among the most dangerously ill patients, or
assigned to care for African-American soldiers.

Female nurses in the North and South went bravely where few Victorian women
had dared tread. Many would consider their experiences to be among the
definitive ones of their lives, leading many to further social and political
service. Showing a high level of determination, knowledge, and emotional and
physical strength, these women succeeded in opening the nursing profession to
future women.

Visit www.CivilWarRx.com to learn more about Civil War nurses.

        

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Early Medical Education for African Americans

From: nlm.nih.gov

Early Medical Education
Prior to the Civil War, most African Americans were enslaved. Very few free African Americans were trained physicians or surgeons, and medical education was not open to people of color in the United States.  Those seeking medical careers as physicians most often received their medical education in Canada or Europe, and a few from medical schools in the North.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, African Americans seeking a medical education were faced with difficult prospects.  Few medical schools would admit black students regardless of their academic excellence.

Medical education for those seeking careers as physicians and surgeons was limited to a few black medical colleges including Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C. and Meharry Medical College, in Nashville, Tennessee both established by whites in 1868 and 1876 respectively, and primarily under the control of white physicians and administrators.

For those achieving a medical degree, specialized studies and hospital privileges were almost unattainable as few hospitals allowed black physicians access for training or to treat patients.  This continued into much of the 20th century, and although some black students were admitted into white medical schools and hospitals, they faced blatant racism, ostracism, and prejudice.

Segregation and Health Care
Organized healthcare for African Americans first developed as a result of the slave owners' need to tend to illness and disease within the enslaved populations on their plantations.

After the Civil War white communities gradually began to establish segregated, white owned and operated hospitals, primarily in the South, to care for the newly freed slaves.  Although they admitted only black patients, these “separate but equal” hospitals were often inadequate, provided substandard care, and rarely provided access for black physicians or nurses.  Segregated hospitals continued to exist well into the 20th century.

Making Their Own Way
As more African Americans obtained medical degrees, black physicians began to respond to racism in American medicine by forming their own medical institutions, teaching hospitals, and medical societies.

Provident Hospital and Training School in Chicago, the first black owned and operated hospital in the United States was established in 1891. Others soon followed including Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and Training School in Philadelphia and Provident Hospital and Free Dispensary in Baltimore. These hospitals provided a higher standard of medical care to black patients and provided education and training for black physicians and nurses. They continued to serve the black community well into the 20th century.

Taylor Lane Hospital in Columbia, South Carolina was founded in 1901 by Dr. Matilda Evans and was the first black hospital in Columbia.  Dr. Evans, pictured above, was the first African American woman physician licensed to practice in the State of South Carolina and treated both black and white patients.  Taylor Lane Hospital was destroyed by fire and eventually established as St. Luke's Hospital and Training School for Nurses.

The National Medical Association was formed in 1895, in direct response to the exclusion of black physicians from the American Medical Association.

They were instrumental in leading the fight for better health care and greater opportunities in medicine to all enfranchised Americans. Today they continue to represent the needs of African American physicians across the country.

Even in the recent 20th century, African Americans have found a need to establish organizations to address current issues facing black physicians.  The Society of Black Academic Surgeons founded in 1989 was established to address the small numbers of African American Surgeons pursuing academic careers and to provide a forum for scholarship in collaboration with the leading departments of surgery in the United States.

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Impact of Disease During Civil War

By Intisar K. Hamidullah

After studying medical records from the Northern Army and Civil War Veterans it was concluded that several hundred potential recruits were unable to join due to poor health history from childhood illnesses and slavery. Although, if one did pass the exam, they dealt with disease on crowded battle fields, trenches and encampments from frequent outbreaks of diseases. The ratio of the number of deaths from disease to wound-caused deaths was much higher for black soldiers than for white ones. The high death rate for blacks was attributed to men being weak and more susceptible to disease from poor living conditions, unhealthy posts, unbalanced diets, and indifferent treatment. Out of the seven diseases previously mentioned, diarrhea (caused by certain viruses and bacteria) was the greatest killer, accounting for 20 percent of all deaths caused by disease, followed by 14 percent pneumonia and 13 percent typhoid.

Socioeconomic background affected soldier's chances of survival during the Civil War in the areas of previous residency, occupation and skin color for blacks. The mortality of a white Northern solider was better if he was not a farmer and lived in the city because he was probably exposed to other infections and his body had built immunity to the disease. The mortality from disease for slaves formerly engaged in other nonfarm occupations such as house servants was as low as the death rate for those in elite occupations, but their advantages over field hands resulted exclusively from their lower probability of contracting diseases. Consequently, black soldiers with darker skin were more likely to die of disease. Since prior to joining the Civil War their bodies and immune systems were not prepared to handle the environmental stress of war.

In conclusion a recruit from a healthy background who had limited exposure to disease had a lower immunity to disease compared to a man from an unhealthy background. Additionally a person who had enlisted with better nutrition was advantaged over a man with poor nutrition, which left him prone to disease. As a result, a measles and small-pox attack would confer immunity and reduce the likelihood of contracting the disease in the future. Whereas a previous attack of TB does not have any influence on resistance to a future attack.

In addition to socioeconomic background affecting a soldier's susceptibility of acquiring a disease, living and sanitary conditions also affected their chance of survival. Some soldiers failed to wash their bodies and their clothes since they were used to being taking care of by either their mother or wife. Additionally camp regulations stated they were supposed to dig an eight foot trench for human bodily wastes and to cover it with six inches of dirt every night. However, most soldiers were disgusted by this so they relieved themselves in an open space instead. Doing this invited flies around the camp accompanied by diseases that spread to the men and their food rations which led to an unhealthy living environment.

 Not only did the soldiers have to endure an unhealthy living environment when they went to the field hospital, they were operated on by a surgeon who had blood and pus on his coat from the previous patient. Then while he was operating on his patient if he dropped his instruments he would pick it up, rinse it off and continue to work on his patient. In addition to the high number of soldiers affected by illness, many were also wounded from bullets. Due to the disproportionate ratio of soldiers to surgeons, the surgeon had to look at a soldier briefly and determine how he was going to be treated. If he was slightly wounded, in the interest of saving as many soldiers as possible, he was overlooked. However if he was wounded on a limb the surgeon would amputate
within ten minutes.

First the doctor would give the solider a dose of whiskey and then place chloroform on a cloth over his nose to place him in an unconscious state for the amputation. Coincidentally, there was a 75% survival rate for amputations if they did not succumb to fever.

Despite a high survival rate for amputees, if they were infected with one of the common deadly diseases their chance for survival rates was not as favorable. Since vaccinations were not available most surgeons and nurses depended on quinine, chloroform, opium, morphine and rhubarb to treat soldiers. When they did not have access to those drugs and chemicals they used natural remedies. According to a doctor's records for treating patients he noted white sumac, red elm, prickly ash and poke was mixed and applied to a syphilis rash. Then for stomach and bowel symptoms soldiers were treated by drinking a mixture of raspberry and whortleberry leaves. Usage of natural remedies was essential if the doctor was unable to secure necessary drug supplies.

Even if a soldier survived the Civil War he incurred lifelong health challenges. A fifty year old Civil War veteran of 1890 resembled his seventy five year old descendents of today. Additionally, Union soldiers were more likely to survive a wartime illness, but Southern soldiers lived several years longer after war. Consequently, the more infections a person is exposed to the greater likelihood of arthritis, heart disease, stroke and even cancer later in life.   

Excerpted From: teachers.yale.edu

       

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Abraham Lincoln and The Embalmer: Dr. Thomas Holmes

From: drvitelli.typepad.com

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865 shocked a nation still recovering from four years of bloody civil war.   Along with the hunt for his killers and the uncovering of the assassination plot against the President and several other members of his administration, there was also the logistic nightmare of his funeral and the need to transport the President's body by train from Washington D.C. to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois.   Since the funeral train would retrace the route that Lincoln had traveled to Washington following his election,  the body would be viewed by millions of mourners along the way during the numerous planned stops.   All of which raised the question of how to keep the body preserved long enough to reach its destination.   Considering the fact that funeral embalming was a relatively new development at that time, some very special arrangements needed to be made.

Enter Thomas Holmes, the "father of American embalming"...

After graduating from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1845, Dr. Holmes developed a keen interest in the proper preserving of cadavers for dissection.  He was also openly critical of the chemical preservatives that were commonly used and the possible health risks that they posed to medical students.   Considering that many of the popular preservatives used arsenic and mercury, he was likely right.   In searching for a better way to preserve bodies, he discovered that European anatomists had already begun experimenting with arterial embalming, i.e.,  opening up an artery in the cadaver, flushing out the blood with water and replacing it with a preservative (typically alcohol).    Through his research, Dr. Holmes developed a more practical embalming solution that he patented and sold commercially. 

Still, it was the outreak of the U.S. Civil War and the problem of preserving the corpses of thousands of soldiers to allow them to be sent home for burial that gave Dr. Holmes the chance to test out his improved preservation methods on a broad scale.    Although the corpses were typically buried at the battlefield sites where they were killed, families often demanded that the corpses be disinterred so they could receive "proper" burials.   Considering the lack of proper refrigeration or hermetically sealed coffins, the delivery brigades charged with shipping the bodies turned to Dr. Holmes and his embalming methods to keep the bodies from decaying long enough to be reburied by their families.   

After receiving a commission as a captain in the Army Medical Corps, Dr. Holmes was assigned to Washington, D.C. and managed to impress President Lincoln enough that the Quartermaster Corps was mobilized to use embalming on a wide scale to return the corpses of Northern soldiers to their homes (the Confederate army never adopted embalming for their soldiers).   Setting up battlefield embalming stations, Dr. Holmes trained numerous embalmers in his new technique and a new profession, the "embalming surgeon" quickly sprang up.    It is hard to say how many corpses Dr. Holmes and his assistants prepared for shipping, (he later claimed to have personally embalmed more than 4,000 bodies but this is probably an exaggeration).   The demand for embalming services became so great that some unscrupulous embalmers actually competed for corpses on the battlefield (the army offered an $80.00 fee for the embalmed body of an officer and $30.00 for a soldier).   By 1865,  the problem had become so bad that the War Department put out General Order 39 to ensure that only properly licensed embalmers would be allowed to offer services to the families of the war dead.  Once the war was over, Dr. Holmes` numerous trained assistants returned home and put their skills to good use. 

Following President Lincoln`s assassination, Mary Todd Lincoln personally requested that Dr. Holmes be placed in charge of her husband`s embalming.    She had been familiar with his work after seeing how effective he was in preparing the body of  Colonel Elmer Elsworth, the first casualty of the U.S. Civil War.  The Lincolns had been impressed enough to have Dr. Holmes embalm the body of their son, William Wallace Lincoln, when he died in 1862.    Embalming the President`s corpse for the long funeral train  was probably the best possible advertisement for the new arterial embalming technique since thousands of mourners were able to see  for themselves how effective it could be. 

Not that there were any actual "embalming surgeons" left for long.  Within just a few years after the end of the Civil War,  embalming was largely left up to professional undertakers.   There was not much of an  organized funerary trade at first (many new embalmers gained their skills from correspondence courses and conducted funerals out of their own homes).  Still,  the next few decades saw a tremendous rise in the funeral industry including the use of open-casket funerals and "wakes" (as opposed to burying the body as quickly as possible).   Dr. Holmes'  embalming fluid and his patented fluid pump were in high demand as more and more people began demanding that their loved ones be embalmed prior to burial.    There were still health risks involved since even the Holmes embalming fluid contained dangerous levels of arsenic (which continued to be used for embalming corpses until well into the 20th century when formaldehyde was adopted).    As for Dr. Thomas Holmes himself, his role as the "father of American embalming" didn't provide him with much success in life. 

Although Dr. Holmes tried to distance him from the embalming trade after the war, the money that he made from selling his embalming fluid was likely the only real business success he ever had.   According to Mary Roach and her excellent book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers,  Dr. Holmes tried different ventures including opening a drugstore,  running at health spa, and launching a root-beer business although he eventually managed to exhaust all of his savings.     He also became, well, strange in his old age (possibly due to the effects of long-term arsenic exposure gained from his embalming experiments).  Not only did he never marry or have children, but he filled his Brooklyn home with some graphic examples of his embalming skill. 

Those few visitors with the nerve to enter his home often encountered preserved bodies in closets and heads sitting on tables in the living-room (he was also a fan of phrenology).     Perhaps not surprisingly, he spent a considerable amount of time in and out of asylums whiile continuing to research new and better ways of preserving corpses.   He was also determined to profit from the funeral industry any way that he could.   Just a few years before his death in 1899, Dr. Holmes took out ads in mortuary trade journals with his latest invention:  a canvas body bag that could also double as a sleeping bag.   Sadly, this last innovation never really caught on (pity there was no eBay back then) and the "father of American embalming", for reasons known only to him, specificaly requested that his body not be embalmed before burial. 

While not as well known as other scientific pioneers, Dr. Thomas Holmes helped launch the funeral industry and, in turn, helped change attitudes concerning death.  He may have also created one of the first industrial hazards of the modern era considering the popularity of his arsenic-based embalming fluid.    As embalming became increasingly affordable and popular, the demand for embalming fluid and its principal ingredient, arsenic, meant a steady rise in arsenic contamination of local water supplies as decaying coffins (whether made of wood or metal) allowed embalmed remains to leak into the groundwater.  

In many cases, the presence of an old cemetery often endangered the health of people living in the surrounding area.  Although arsenic was eventually phased out in favour of formaldehyde (which was already available in Dr. Holmes's time), the thousands of embalmed corpses still remaining in cemeteries across the country have been shown by researchers to carry dangerous amounts of arsenic.   Since arsenic exposure can enter the bloodstream in different ways, people working around old burial sites need to take special precautions to prevent health problems.

Which is probably not the lasting legacy that Dr. Thomas Holmes had in mind.

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The First Civil War Photographs of Soldiers with Facial Wounds.

Source: New York University Medical Center, New York, USA.

Abstract

During the Civil War, for the first time in medical history, a large number of excellent photographs were taken of many wounded Union and (to a lesser degree) Confederate soldiers by photographers assigned by their doctors or surgeons, or by photographers employed by the Army Medical Museum. The majority of these photographs demonstrating facial, head, and neck wounds have not been published since the Civil War, except for a few minor exceptions. The actual art of printing photographs in medical journals, daily newspapers, and magazines did not even begin until the early 1880s--almost two decades after the Civil War [24]. Any photographs that could be found in certain rare medical and surgical books during and immediately after the War were actually pasted into those books by their printers.

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