XXVII. Records of the Office of the Surgeon General of the United States (RG 112)
The National Archives in Washington, DC holds some records of Civil War medical personnel and support staff:
1. Station Books of Medical Officers, 1857-1902.
2. Registers of Military Service of Hospital Stewards, 1856-1887.
3. List of Volunteer Medical Officers Who Served with the Civil War Army Corps, 1861-1865.
4. Registers of Deaths of Civil War Voluntary Medical Officers, 1863-1896.
5. List of Female Nurses, Cooks, and Laundresses Employed in Army Hospitals During the Civil War.
XXVIII. Books on Civil War Medicine
Adams, George Worthington. Doctors in Blue; The Medical History of the Union Army in the Civil War. New York: H. Schuman, 1952.
Barnes, Joseph K. The Medical and Surgical History of the Civil War. Wilmington, N.C.: Broadfoot Pub. Co, 1990.
Bollet, Alfred J. Civil War Medicine: Challenges and Triumphs. Tucson, Ariz: Galen Press, 2002.
Cunningham, Horace Herndon. Doctors in Gray; The Confederate Medical Service. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1958.
Flannery, Michael A. Civil War Pharmacy: A History of Drugs, Drug Supply and Provision, and Therapeutics for the Union and Confederacy. Pharmaceutical heritage. New York: Pharmaceutical Products Press, 2004.
Freemon, Frank R. Microbes and Minie Balls: An Annotated Bibliography of Civil War Medicine. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1993.
Rutkow, Ira M. Bleeding Blue and Gray: Civil War Surgery and the Evolution of American Medicine. New York: Random House, 2005.
Smith, George Winston. Medicines for the Union Army; The United States Army Laboratories During the Civil War. Madison, Wis: Amer. Institute of the History of Pharmacy, 1962.
XXIX. Websites
Civil War Home- Civil War Medicine
CivilWarPhotos.net
Growing Research Into History of Drugs Used During Civil War
Library of Congress- American Memory -- NOTE: Under Search All Collections, type “Civil War medicine”.
National Museum of Civil War Medicine
Preparing and Dispensing Prescriptions During the Civil War
Society of Civil War Surgeons
Tom Pearson, Reference Librarian
Special Collections Department
St. Louis Public Library
1415 Olive Street
St. Louis, MO 63103
Showing posts with label Nurses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nurses. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
KILLED BY THE CURE: CIVIL WAR MEDICINE, PT. IV
XI. Nuns as Nurses
One female volunteer nurse noted that the plain, unornamented dresses she was required to wear “caused most people to mistake me for a nun.” Some of the women who volunteered to serve as nurses actually were nuns, including 300 Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul (1/3 of the order’s total membership at the time).
XII. Employment Status of Female Nurses
By war’s end, at least 5,000 women had volunteered to serve as nurses in Union Army hospitals. Nurses served in one of these ways:
1. As paid volunteers arranged on the local level.
2. As unpaid volunteers arranged on the local level.
3. Wives and daughters of medical personnel sometimes served as nurses, without pay but drawing daily rations from the Union Army.
4. Female relatives of wounded men sometimes stayed on after their relative recovered or passed on, having no formal assignment but helping out as needed.
5. As employees of State agencies or aid societies like the U.S. Sanitary Commission.
6. As nurses specifically assigned to a hospital by the Superintendent of Female Nurses.
XIII. Famous Civil War Nurses
Two of the most famous Civil War nurses, Clara Barton and Mary “Mother” Bickerdyke, began their service as volunteer nurses without official government appointments. When someone asked Mother Bickerdyke by whose authority she served, she replied that she had “received my commission from Almighty God.” Since nobody chose to question His authority, she was allowed to continue her work. During the war she was formally commended by General Sherman for her tireless efforts to aid injured soldiers. Miss Barton became famous for her post-war efforts to help people find missing soldiers.
XIV. Civil War Nurses- Postwar Experiences
Much is made of the liberating effect employment in World War II industries had on American women, but little is made of the liberating effect that employment as Civil War nurses had on women North and South. Women who worked as nurses experienced freedoms and responsibilities many had never encountered in their pre-war occupations. Once the war ended, their brushes with the outside world were not easily forgotten. Many such women later played important parts in the women’s suffrage movement.
Tom Pearson, Reference Librarian
Special Collections Department
St. Louis Public Library
1301 Olive Street
St. Louis, MO 63103
Copyright © 2009 by St. Louis Public Library.
One female volunteer nurse noted that the plain, unornamented dresses she was required to wear “caused most people to mistake me for a nun.” Some of the women who volunteered to serve as nurses actually were nuns, including 300 Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul (1/3 of the order’s total membership at the time).
XII. Employment Status of Female Nurses
By war’s end, at least 5,000 women had volunteered to serve as nurses in Union Army hospitals. Nurses served in one of these ways:
1. As paid volunteers arranged on the local level.
2. As unpaid volunteers arranged on the local level.
3. Wives and daughters of medical personnel sometimes served as nurses, without pay but drawing daily rations from the Union Army.
4. Female relatives of wounded men sometimes stayed on after their relative recovered or passed on, having no formal assignment but helping out as needed.
5. As employees of State agencies or aid societies like the U.S. Sanitary Commission.
6. As nurses specifically assigned to a hospital by the Superintendent of Female Nurses.
XIII. Famous Civil War Nurses
Two of the most famous Civil War nurses, Clara Barton and Mary “Mother” Bickerdyke, began their service as volunteer nurses without official government appointments. When someone asked Mother Bickerdyke by whose authority she served, she replied that she had “received my commission from Almighty God.” Since nobody chose to question His authority, she was allowed to continue her work. During the war she was formally commended by General Sherman for her tireless efforts to aid injured soldiers. Miss Barton became famous for her post-war efforts to help people find missing soldiers.
XIV. Civil War Nurses- Postwar Experiences
Much is made of the liberating effect employment in World War II industries had on American women, but little is made of the liberating effect that employment as Civil War nurses had on women North and South. Women who worked as nurses experienced freedoms and responsibilities many had never encountered in their pre-war occupations. Once the war ended, their brushes with the outside world were not easily forgotten. Many such women later played important parts in the women’s suffrage movement.
Tom Pearson, Reference Librarian
Special Collections Department
St. Louis Public Library
1301 Olive Street
St. Louis, MO 63103
Copyright © 2009 by St. Louis Public Library.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
KILLED BY THE CURE: CIVIL WAR MEDICINE, PT. III
Copyright © 2009 by St. Louis Public Library.
VIII. Civil War Nurses
Female nurses were a most uncommon sight in American medicine prior to the Civil War. Men performed most of the duties we commonly associate with nurses. Florence Nightingale and her Corps of Female Nurses, who were employed by the British during the Crimean War in the 1850s, had fired the imaginations of American women, however, many of whom eagerly volunteered their services to the Union Army Medical Corps.
IX. Dorothea Dix
A flood of applications by women to work as volunteer nurses in Union Army hospitals brought about the appointment of Miss Dorothea Dix, who was already well-known for her pre-war work in the reform of insane asylums, as Superintendent of Female Nurses by the Director of the Union Army Medical Corps in 1861.
Miss Dix decreed that volunteer female nurses should be “plain-looking, mature” women who had to dress in simple brown or black dresses. They were not to wear bows or jewelry, have curls in their hair, or wear hoops in their skirts.
X. Appearance of Female Nurses
Most women greatly disliked Miss Dix’s strictures on age, appearance, and dress, and many violations of her rules occurred. One volunteer female nurse noted that “never before have so many American women attempted to appear older than their natural years.” Attractive women did what they could to disguise their looks until appointed, then reverted to their normal appearances.
Many women “felt naked” without the hoop skirts then in fashion, and wore them in spite of Miss Dix’s prohibition. In at least one documented case, a hoop skirt caught in a soldier’s surgical dressing and opened the wound, causing his death due to hemorraging.
Tom Pearson, Reference Librarian
Special Collections Department
St. Louis Public Library
1301 Olive Street
St. Louis, MO 63103
VIII. Civil War Nurses
Female nurses were a most uncommon sight in American medicine prior to the Civil War. Men performed most of the duties we commonly associate with nurses. Florence Nightingale and her Corps of Female Nurses, who were employed by the British during the Crimean War in the 1850s, had fired the imaginations of American women, however, many of whom eagerly volunteered their services to the Union Army Medical Corps.
IX. Dorothea Dix
A flood of applications by women to work as volunteer nurses in Union Army hospitals brought about the appointment of Miss Dorothea Dix, who was already well-known for her pre-war work in the reform of insane asylums, as Superintendent of Female Nurses by the Director of the Union Army Medical Corps in 1861.
Miss Dix decreed that volunteer female nurses should be “plain-looking, mature” women who had to dress in simple brown or black dresses. They were not to wear bows or jewelry, have curls in their hair, or wear hoops in their skirts.
X. Appearance of Female Nurses
Most women greatly disliked Miss Dix’s strictures on age, appearance, and dress, and many violations of her rules occurred. One volunteer female nurse noted that “never before have so many American women attempted to appear older than their natural years.” Attractive women did what they could to disguise their looks until appointed, then reverted to their normal appearances.
Many women “felt naked” without the hoop skirts then in fashion, and wore them in spite of Miss Dix’s prohibition. In at least one documented case, a hoop skirt caught in a soldier’s surgical dressing and opened the wound, causing his death due to hemorraging.
Tom Pearson, Reference Librarian
Special Collections Department
St. Louis Public Library
1301 Olive Street
St. Louis, MO 63103
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