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.

Posted in: facial reconstruction,Medical Photography,Plastic Surgery