Learning from the Wounded

March 15, 2014

Civil War medicine is generally associated with amputations on the battlefield, but Devine (research fellow, history of medicine, Schulich Sch. of Medicine & Dentistry, Western Univ., Canada, Ont.) shows how the war changed both the paradigms of medical inquiry and treatment and attitudes toward physicians as arbiters of scientific knowledge. Prior to the war, U.S. physician training was unregulated and far weaker than in Europe. Access to cadavers for dissection and anatomical study was strictly limited. The war gave physicians supporting the Union cause (Devine focuses on them because Confederate medical care was much more compromised owing to lack of supplies) much practical experience and impelled scientific investigations with newly advanced skills in areas such as dissection, pathological research, and microscope work. Furthermore Army Surgeon General William Alexander Hammond mandated that doctors share their findings by providing specimens, research results, and case histories to the Army Medical Museum and Library, which became an aggregator of medical information, playing a critical role in the dissemination of scientific knowledge. The push for learning and advances in medical understanding and care, impelled by wartime casualties, would ultimately lead to the development of medical specialties in succeeding decades. VERDICT Devine's book compares to Ira Rutkow's Bleeding Blue and Gray: Civil War Surgery and the Evolution of American Medicine, with her title very clearly explicating the transitions created by the war itself. Recommended to readers in the history of medicine or military medicine.--Rebecca Hill, Zionsville, IN

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