Making men medical: Impacts of the American Civil

War

HI31LWeek 5

I. Introduction: context and chronology of the US Civil WarA. Context: A war of two halvesB. Social Movements

II. Military HygieneA. The Sanitarian’s laboratoryB. War as popularizer of

sanitarian principlesIII. Military Medicine, war and the

sciences

Chronology of the US Civil War1860 Lincoln elected on a platform including abolitionDec. 1860 Ordinance of Secession (by May 1861 10

states had seceded including Texas)Feb 1861 provisional constitution for Confederate

States of America; Jefferson Davis inauguratedApril 12 1861 First battle, at Fort Sumter, SCApril 19th Blockade of Southern portsSeptember 1862, Emancipation Proclamation issuedJanuary 1863 Emancipation Proclamation takes effect1864 Lincoln re-electedJanuary 1865 Thirteenth Amendment passedApril 1865 Lincoln shot; Lee surrenders at

AppomattoxNovember 1865 Last confederate ship surrenders to

British in Liverpool

620,000 dead (two-thirds to disease);

50,000 amputees; 6 million sick and wounded over the course of the war

Context: A war of two halves

The dichotomies of the Civil War era:Urban vs. rural

capital vs. raw material

manufacturing vs. agriculture

Federalist vs. States’ rights

immigrant labor vs. slave labor

abolition vs. ‘peculiar institution’

Social Movements: Sanitarianism• May 1857: first

national ‘quarantine’ convention -- later to become ‘quarantine and sanitary committee’. The key tenet of sanitarians: Disease can be prevented and controlled by hygiene -- by cleaning the environment.

• See John Griscom quote from Feb 26, 1845 letter to Lemuel Shattuck

‘I have lately given 2 lectures on Fresh Air and Ventilation, illustrating experimentally the mechanism & Chemistry of Respiration, and the Influence of foul or respired, air, on Health of mind and Body. They … are calculated to correct many of the great abuses of social life, and attract attention to the necessity of ventilating public rooms, churches, workshops, School houses, Dwellings, etc. etc.. … Lectures more practically useful … to every human being, cannot be given—they touch upon the subject which of all others, is calculated to improve the physical condition, & through that the moral condition, of man in his State of Civilization, and gregariousness.’

Abolitionism• International

movement• Use of all available

media• Focused on South,

but condemned abuses in North as well

• Close assoc with 1st struggle for women’s rights, purity, single moral standard – all in US profoundly shaped by the Second Great Awakening (1790s-1840s)

Military Hygiene

A. Civil war as the Sanitarians’ laboratory

–North vs. South as evidence in the case–US Sanitary Committee forced on Army largely by women volunteer groups–1862: Sanitary commission granted power to reorganize the Army medical department; sanitary inspectors; surgeon general to be appointed by merit (but 1864, some powers revoked)

Military Hygiene

• B. War as great popularizer of sanitarianism

–Soldiers inculcated in sanitarian practices of hygiene–Spread of civilian committees and volunteers: nursing -- already associated strongly with military through Nightingale’s efforts in Scutari during Crimean War. Takes sanitarianism deep into popular culture

Military Medicine & Sciences of War

Role of Military in shaping medical and surgical orthodoxy

and standards• Eg: giving all recruited medics specific

standard textsThomson's Conspectus, William J. E. Wilson's Practical and Surgical Anatomy, Thomas Watson's Practice of Physic, Erichsen's Surgery.

• Taking increasing control over prescribing, therapeutics

• Preference given to medical ‘regulars’ as opposed to homeopaths etc

• AND …

Mandatory creation of

medical records

Opportunistic Anatomy

Medical advances

Ether in Wartime Surgery

Just a few of the many useful websites:

• http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/sources/

• http://www.civilwarhome.com/civilwarmedicineintro.htm

• http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~sackettmckayhistory/LiesasLineage/MilitaryRecords/PriceRobert.html

Terms from the readings

• Sanitarianism• Standardization/interchangeability• US Sanitary Commission• Silas Weir Mitchell• ‘the man that was used up’/ ‘the empty sleeve’• B. Franklin Palmer/ A.A. Marks• Patent medicine/ ‘cripple race’• Hysteria• ‘technologies of inscription and of prosthesis’

Periodization in US History

Current ‘state of the art’ as proposed by NCHSEra 1 Three Worlds Meet (Beginnings to 1620)Era 2 Colonization and Settlement (1585-1763)Era 3 Revolution and New Nation (1754-1820s)Era 4 Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)Era 5 Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877)Era 6 Development of Industrial USA (1870-1900)Era 7 The Emergence of Modern America (1890-

1930)Era 8 The Depression and World War II (1929-1945)Era 9 Postwar United States (1945-early 1970s)Era 10 Contemporary United States (1968-present)

Periodization in US History(Fairly) Traditional Periodization I

Conquest and Settlement: 1492-1620Colonial Era: 1585-1776 (some end at beginnings

of British consolidation c. 1763 Treaty of Paris)Revolutionary Era 1776- c. 1788 (Dec of

Independence to ratification of Constitution)Early Republic: 1788-1823 ( structures of US State

consolidated, Separation of Powers and States’ Rights established;Louisiana Purchase; ends with Monroe Doctrine)

Jacksonian Democracy (?)/Frontier America: c. 1820-c. 1846 (elected 1828; 1831 Trail of Tears; 1845 ‘Manifest Destiny’)

Expansion: 1846-60 (Mexican War 1846-7, Westward Ho/Gold Rush)

Civil War (1861-65)

Periodization in US History

(Fairly) Traditional Periodization II

Reconstruction (1863-1877)Gilded Age/Robber Barons (1878-1889)Progressive Era (1890-1913)World War I (1914-1918)Jazz Age (1918-1928)Depression and New Deal (1929-1939)World War II (1941-45)Cold War (1945-1991)Civil Rights Era (c. 1954- c.1971)