Existing comment:
Medicine ... in Field and Camp:
"I have been with the dead and dying. One man... has been amputated twice and must be again. His fortitude is remarkable."
-- Fanny Ricketts, at Portici, July 26, 1861
Surgeons on both sides worked in tents or hospitals improvised from barns, churches, or houses. To deal with hundreds of wounded, they had only basic equipment and woefully inadequate supplies. Many surgeries successfully amputated limbs or removed bullets and fragments -- only to see men die from post-operative infections. |