National Museum of Civil War Medicine - National Museum of Civil War Medicine

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Divided by Conflict.

Three sites, thousands of stories.

National Museum of Civil War Medicine

Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum

Pry House Field Hospital Museum

Upcoming Programs

Zouave ambulance crew demonstrating removal of wounded soldiers from the field, Courtesy of the LOC

Ask Me Anything – Civil War Ambulances Live Stream

December 3 @ 1:00 pm

Ask Museum staff your questions about Civil War ambulances and more in this special live stream.

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Maladies of Empire Livestream with Dr. Jim Downs

December 9 @ 1:00 pm

John Lustrea will talk with author Jim Downs about his latest book on the study of exploited groups and infectious disease.

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Christmas and the Civil War

December 13 @ 1:00 pm

Learn about the surprising connection between the Civil War and our modern Christmas season on this virtual program.

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Discover History Firsthand

Take a closer look at artifacts that reveal how history was made.

From Our Blog

“Mother I wish I was out of this place . . . ” Letters from a dying Civil War Soldier

November 9, 2021

The letters of Joseph Welsh, a dying Civil War soldier, illustrate the cost of disease in the ranks. Welch died of typhoid fever.

Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte: The First Indian Doctor

October 14, 2021

Susan La Flesche Picotte broke intersectional barriers as a woman, as an American Indian, and as a medical doctor in the 19th century

civilwarmed

A Thanksgiving dinner menu from a Civil War hospit

A Thanksgiving dinner menu from a Civil War hospital

This "bill of fare" comes shows what delicious foods and delicacies landed on the holiday dinner table for the patients of Jarvis General Hospital in Baltimore in November 1864.

What's on your Thanksgiving menu?

Image credit:
Wikimedia Commons

"The first devices recognizable as hypodermic syri

"The first devices recognizable as hypodermic syringes were independently invented virtually simultaneously in 1853 by Scottish physician Alexander Wood and French surgeon Charles Gabriel Pravaz."

It remains unclear how widely used hypodermic syringes were during the Civil War, but in the words of historian David Courtwright "it is virtually certain...that they were in the minority." Nonetheless, they were in constant demand, and one U.S. surgeon asserted that his hospital delivered forty thousand injections over the course of the war.

Needles were used for immediate pain relief by delivering opiates as quickly as possible.

In the years following the conflict, hypodermic syringes greatly accelerated the growing opioid addiction crisis that was gripping the nation.

Sources:
Levy, Stephen, "Hypodermic Syringes: Greatest Medical Device of All Time?," Qmed, April 11, 2014, accessed November 19, 2020, <https://www.mddionline.com/drug-delivery/hypodermic-syringes-greatest-medical-device-all-time>.

Courtwright, David T., "Opiate Addiction as a Consequence of the Civil War," in The Civil War Veteran: A Historical Reader, Larry M. Logue and Michael Barton editors, New York: New York University Press, 2007, page 106.

Image credit:
Hypodermic needle, National Museum of Civil War Medicine Collection, 2009.012.001

"No one can be healthy whose teeth are deficient o

"No one can be healthy whose teeth are deficient or in bad condition; soldiers require that these organs should be sound.

The loss of the front teeth prevents the soldier from tearing his cartridge and the loss or carious state of the molars seriously interferes with the proper mastification of his food... An unhealthy condition of the gums besides being itself a disqualifying causes indicates a depraved condition of the general system."

The US Army excused 5,230 recruits out of 255,188 who were examined because of poor teeth during the Civil War.

Source:
Hammond, Dr. William, "A Treatise on Hygiene with Special Reference to the Military Service," Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1863, via U.S. National Library of Medicine, accessed October 25, 2021, <https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-62510670R-bk>.

Image credit:
[Unidentified soldier in Union uniform with two revolvers and picking his teeth with a Bowie knife], Library of Congress.

This #givingtuesday you can support us in restorin

This #givingtuesday you can support us in restoring a unique hands-on experience: a functioning ambulance wagon!

Visit us at CivilWarMed.org to make your contribution today!

Riverine campaigns during the Civil War exposed US

Riverine campaigns during the Civil War exposed US Navy sailors to a myriad of diseases.

Long periods of inactivity on blockade or in anticipation of battle meant that many sailors lived in swampy conditions where disease could run rampant. An officer of the USS Richmond complained that his ship was "smitten with insects, heat intolerable, fevers, chills, and dysentery, and inglorious inactivity."

Source:
Browning Jr., Robert M., "Lincoln's Trident: The West Gulf Blockading Squadron During the Civil War," Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama, 2015, page 143.

Image credit:
Detail from "Gunboat 'Agawam', Officers and crew," National Archives and Research Administration.

In July 1863, the US Army Surgeon General sent Sur

In July 1863, the US Army Surgeon General sent Surgeon John Brinton to the site of the Battle of Gettysburg to assist in the recovery and treatment of wounded soldiers on the battlefield.

While passing over the war-torn landscape, Brinton - the curator of the Army Medical Museum at the time - came across a peculiar sight.

From Brinton's memoir:

"As usual after battles, many of the killed were buried in trenches or pits. One of my men on this occasion took from the body of a Southern soldier, a breast plate of soft steel, in two halves, intended to be worn under the coat or best.

"One ball had struck it and indented or bent it without perforation. Another, if I remember rightly, had passed through in the region of the liver, causing the death of the wearer...

"This cuirass was placed in the Army Museum, and I suppose is there now. It was the only example of defensive armor I met with during the war."

Indeed, the plate remains with the collections of the Army Medical Museum held by our friends at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring, Maryland.

From their description of the remarkable object: "An iron breastplate, half of a defensive cuirass, perforated, perhaps by rifle balls. Taken from the body of a Confederate soldier killed on July 3, 1863 at the battle of Gettysburg."

Source:
"Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, Major and Surgeon U.S.V., 1861-1865," 1914. Page 245.

Image credit:
Iron breastplate (AFIP 337711), National Museum of Health and Medicine, Historical Collections.