BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Museum of Health and Medicine (Walter Reed) -- Exhibit: Civil War

DC -- Natl Museum of Health and Medicine (Walter Reed) -- Exhibit: Civil War:

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[1] NMHMCW_050618_04.JPG	[2] NMHMCW_050618_11.JPG	[3] NMHMCW_050618_24.JPG
[4] NMHMCW_050618_31.JPG	[5] NMHMCW_050618_42.JPG	[6] NMHMCW_050618_52.JPG
[7] NMHMCW_050618_58.JPG	[8] NMHMCW_050618_70.JPG	[9] NMHMCW_050618_72.JPG
[10] NMHMCW_050618_78.JPG	[11] NMHMCW_050618_82.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. NMHMCW_050618_04.JPG: Gunshot wounds to the skull were fatal in more than 80% of cases reported by Union surgeons. This skull, retrieved in 1866 from the Confederate trenches at Wilderness, Virginia, shows a gunshot wound.
2. NMHMCW_050618_11.JPG: "The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand" The State of Civil War Medicine: The spring of 1861 saw the opening shots of the Civil War fired of Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Years of disagreement between the Northern and Southern states over the issues of states' rights, slavery, and the cultural differences dividing industrial and agrarian economies culminated in war. From 1861 until 1865, Union and Confederate armies and navies drew weapons in hundreds of battles from Pennsylvania to New Mexico. Nearly 200,000 men lost their lives from enemy fire during the four years of the war. However, more than 400,000 soldiers were killed by an enemy that took no side -- disease. From our modern perspective, medicine during the Civil War seems primitive. Doctors received limited medical education. Most surgeons lacked familiarity with gunshot wounds. The newly developed minie ball produced grisly wounds that were difficult to treat. The Northern and Southern medical departments were ill-prepared for removing wounded me from the battlefield and transporting them to hospitals. Systems to provide hospital care for the sick and wounded had not been adequately developed. Blood typing, x-rays, antibiotics, and modern medical tests and procedures were nonexistent. Open latrines, decomposing food, and unclean water were the rule in the camps. Diarrheal diseases affected nearly every soldier and killed hundreds of thousands of men. Although surgeons used ether and chloroform routinely as aesthetics, surgery was performed with unwashed hands and unclean instruments, resulting in infected wounded. The most effective drugs were the pain-killers opium and morphine while many of the other available drugs were useless or harmful. Despite these limitations, Civil War doctors achieved some remarkable successes in treating the wounded and comforting the sick.
3. NMHMCW_050618_24.JPG: "The smell of ether, the odor of blood" Trauma and Surgery: Popular but generally incorrect images of Civil War medicine involved surgery -- amputations without anesthesia, piles of arms and legs, the surgeon as butcher. By modern standards, wartime surgery was limited. Despite the lack of both surgical experience and sanitary conditions, the survival rate among those who underwent the knife was better than in previous wars. Amputation was not the only surgical recourse available. Surgeons also extracted bullets, operated on fractured skulls, reconstructed damaged facial structures, and removed sections of broken bones. As bullets hit their victims, shattered bone and shredded flesh became the calling cards of the minie ball. Most of the surgeons who had come from civilian practices had little or no experience in dealing with such wounds. They quickly became aware of the surgical options: remove the limb, remove the fractured portions of bone, or clean the wound and apply a dressing. Union surgeons documented nearly 250,000 wounds from bullets, shrapnel, and other missiles. Fewer than one thousand cases of wounds from sabers and bayonets were reported.
4. NMHMCW_050618_31.JPG: The Case of Major General Daniel E. Sickles: Major General Daniel E. Sickles, Union Third Army Corps commander, was struck by a cannonball during the battle of Gettysburg. Sickles was on horseback when the twelve-pound ball severely fractured his lower right leg. Sickles quieted his horse, dismounted and was taken to a shelter where Surgeon Thomas Sims amputated the leg just above the knee. Shortly after the operation, the Army Medical Museum received Sickles' leg in a small box bearing a visiting card with the message: "With the compliments of Major General D.E.S." The amputation healed rapidly and by September of 1863, Sickles returned to military service. For many years on the anniversary of the amputation, Sickles visited his leg at the museum. Sickles' exploits extended beyond the Civil War. He was the first defendant to successfully use the temporary insanity defense in the United States. In 1859, Sickles was found not guilty of the murder of his wife's lover, Philip Barton Key, the son of the composer of the national anthem. Sickles had shot Key in Lafayette Square in Washington in a jealous rage after learning of the affair. Sickles also served as a secret agent for President Lincoln and was appointed Ambassador to Spain by President Grant. Right lower leg bones of Major General Daniel E. Sickles showing the destruction cause by a cannonball.
5. NMHMCW_050618_70.JPG: This devise was used as a quick chain saw to cut bones for an amputation
6. NMHMCW_050618_78.JPG: Lives Saved, Limbs Lost: Every military surgeon wants to save soldiers' lives. However, sometimes it is at the expense of soldiers' limbs. Due to the advent of high-explosive ordinance and mechanized warfare, wounds often resulted in the mangling of body parts that are beyond repair. Such situations have led to numerous battlefield amputations. During the Civil War, the Union Army reported about 30,000 cases of amputation mostly owing to gunshot wounds. Despite improved procedures in vascular surgery and other medical procedures by World War II, approximately 15,000 amputations were performed on American soldiers after explosives destroyed their limbs. The extensive use of landmines and other explosive booby trap devices in the Vietnam War led to numerous injuries of soldiers' lower limbs. From 1966 to 1969, one army hospital treated 500 major amputees of which over two-thirds suffered the loss of at least a foot, or a leg. Mechanical replacement limbs (prosthetics) have been manufactured since before the Civil War era. The twentieth-century examples displayed here range from a hand carved "peg leg" to devices designed to replace both upper and lower extremities. To fully adapt to the use of a prosthetic limb, the patient must display extraordinary physical and psychological stamina, especially for the first few years.
7. NMHMCW_050618_82.JPG: Field Day: Amputated limbs outside Harewood Hospital, Washington DC, during the Civil War.
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