Existing comment:
Smuggling Medicines into the South:
The practice of medicine during the Civil War was crude, but advances were being made. Ether and chloroform were routinely used as anesthesia prior to surgery, for example. But as with other commodities, medical supplies were more scarce in the South than in the North. This lithograph depicts Confederates smuggling medicines, perhaps across the Potomac from Maryland or from a point farther south. The boat is a reminder that many goods had to be smuggled into the Confederacy because of the Union blockade of the seaports, which increasingly prevented trade as the war progressed.
Transfer lithograph, 1864 |