Civil War Sanitary (Medical) Services

[cyberia]

Wounded soldiers being tended in the field after the Battle of Chancellorsville near Fredericksburg, Va., May 2, 1863



Ambulances of the 57th New York Infantry, 1864



Despite the posed look of those in this photograph, this is reported to be an amputation being performed in a
hospital tent, Gettysburg, July 1863



Ward in the Carver General Hospital, Washington, D.C.

[Jason G]

Note the pine boughs draped all over everything. It wasn't Christmas, they were hung to eliminate the smell.

The officer in the first picture, to the left, is a medical corps officer, likely an assistant surgeon working at the Field hospital. Note that the soldiers have all already been operated on (one is missing his right hand) and are in the 'recovery' area, likely a few hundred feet from the field hospital. The soldier on the stretcher is possibly a Confederate, note the missing shoes (even tho one foot has been amputated, he lacks a shoe on the left foot as well) and the fact he is still on the stretcher itself. Stretchers were a valuable commodity on both sides, and weren't used except for transport of the wounded, not for 'recovery' so to speak. Likely he's just been sat down and is just from the operating room. Robert E. Lee actually made it a courtmartial offense for men of his "Ambulance Corps" to "willfully, wantonly or negligently" abandon or destroy a stretcher, which had been common practice because they had to be hand carried, and the dang things weighed 30-40 pounds or more. Having carried one as a reenactor myself, I can well understand the idea to dump the thing.

[Holly6]

Jason,
Great idea for a thread. Good luck. Can I ask a question about the qualifications of CW Medical Staffs? I've heard that they could range from University trained to "learn on the fly". And...if I'm not crowding the question to much, a bit about the advances in knowledge and/or procedures during the war?

[Jason G]

Sure!

You are correct, Doctors could become doctors (and this applied to lawyers as well) by one of two ways, either by going to "Medical school" (most of which were 9 months or so long, and the term was 2 years...the 2nd year was an exact repeat of the first..and it was all lectures....almost never did the student get to practice on a 'live' patient...) or apprenctice with a veteran doctor for a number of years, doing (literally) OJT until that doctor felt the student was ready to go out on their own. Medical school was originally intended just to give the student doc the 'book learning', then they would go and "intern" (recognize the term?) with an experienced doctor. However, many didn't, they just hung up a shingle to practice.

Doctors were typically commissioned from the same place as the regiment was raised, but the glaring deficiency that nearly all of them shared was complete lack of knowledge of trauma medicine. They had to learn 'on the job'. Not good if you were a casualty.

Advances in medicine included the widespread acceptance of surgical practice, trauma care, triage, bandaging/splinting, the knowledge of antisepsis (to a degree), brain surgery, "plastic" surgery (because the original appliances were made of gutta percha, an early form of 'plastic', thus the term), the ambulance service, nursing as a profession,and artificial limb manufacture, as well as embalming as an accepted medical practice, are just SOME of the advances brought on by the Civil War.

[Holly6]

Originally Posted by Jason G

Sure!

You are correct, Doctors could become doctors (and this applied to lawyers as well) by one of two ways, either by going to "Medical school" (most of which were 9 months or so long, and the term was 2 years...the 2nd year was an exact repeat of the first..and it was all lectures....almost never did the student get to practice on a 'live' patient...) or apprenctice with a veteran doctor for a number of years, doing (literally) OJT until that doctor felt the student was ready to go out on their own. Medical school was originally intended just to give the student doc the 'book learning', then they would go and "intern" (recognize the term?) with an experienced doctor. However, many didn't, they just hung up a shingle to practice.

Doctors were typically commissioned from the same place as the regiment was raised, but the glaring deficiency that nearly all of them shared was complete lack of knowledge of trauma medicine. They had to learn 'on the job'. Not good if you were a casualty.

Advances in medicine included the widespread acceptance of surgical practice, trauma care, triage, bandaging/splinting, the knowledge of antisepsis (to a degree), brain surgery, "plastic" surgery (because the original appliances were made of gutta percha, an early form of 'plastic', thus the term), the ambulance service, nursing as a profession,and artificial limb manufacture, as well as embalming as an accepted medical practice, are just SOME of the advances brought on by the Civil War.

Good stuff thanks! The "plastic" surgery info is going into my "little book of stuff", students really enjoy those tidbits.

[Jason G]

LOL. Word origins are funny things. People today don't have a clue where this stuff came from.

Other advances include medical drawing and photography, case studies, the internship program, and the founding of the American Medical Association.