Gangrene and Glory: Medical Care During the American Civil WarThis unusual history of the Civil War takes a close look at the battlefield doctors in whose hands rested the lives of thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers and at the makeshift medicine they were forced to employ. A medical doctor and a credentialed historian, Frank R. Freemon combines poignant, sometimes horrifying anecdotes of amputation, infection, and death with a clearheaded discussion of the state of medical knowledge, the effect of the military bureaucracy on medical supplies, and the members of the medical community who risked their lives, their health, and even their careers to provide appropriate care to the wounded. Freemon examines the impact on major campaigns--Manassas, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Shiloh, Atlanta--of ignorance, understaffing, inexperience, overcrowded hospitals, insufficient access to ambulances, and inadequate supplies of essentials such as quinine. Presenting the medical side of the war from a variety of perspectives--the Union, the Confederacy, doctors, nurses, soldiers, and their families--Gangrene and Glory achieves a peculiar immediacy by restricting its scope to the knowledge and perceptions available to its nineteenth-century subjects. Now available for the first time in paperback, this important volume takes a hard, close look at a neglected and crucial aspect of this bloody conflict. |
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Gangrene and Glory: Medical Care During the American Civil War Frank R. Freemon No preview available - 1998 |
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aboard afflicted ambulance amputation April Army Medical Army of Tennessee Atlanta battle became Brinton Carolina Chimborazo Hospital City Civil civilian command Confeder Confederacy Confederate Army Confederate medical Confederate States Army Corps diarrhea died diers disease epidemic evacuated Federal field hospital gangrene geon Georgia Gettysburg Hammond ical illness Jackson John Jonathan Letterman Journal July June Letterman major malaria Manassas McGuire measles Medical and Surgical medical authorities medical department medical director medical furlough medical officers medicine ment military minié ball Mississippi Moore naval North nurses organization Orleans patients Philadelphia physicians Potomac quinine rebel regiment Richmond River scurvy ship sick and wounded Silas Weir Mitchell smallpox South Southern Stout surgeon assistant surgeon Surgeon General's Office surgery symptoms Table tion troops U.S. Army U.S. Navy U.S. Sanitary Commission Union army Union forces Union soldiers USAMHI vaccination vessel Vicksburg campaign wagon Washington William wounded soldiers yellow fever York