Inside of a civil war

hospital

At the beginning of the civil war, hospitals were unsanitary

and crowded. However as time went on people tried to fix

some issues that could save lives. William Hammond, for

example, created ventilated systems that kept diseases from

spreading and an inspection plan, that every hospital had to

pass in order to operate. Soon, hospitals were in ship shape.

The Union army had only 98 doctors registered. The

confederacy had 24. Both sides were accepting anyone who

applied for the job. All that the new doctors had to go off of was

a little book called, "the practice of surgery."

Overcrowding• Overcrowding was a serious

issue in hospitals. Sometimes

patients had to be kept outside

in the heat.

• Hospitals were often set up in

old houses or barns; places

that were not equipped to care

for the wounded.

• At the Battle of Gettysburg,

there were so many wounded

soldiers, every building in a ten

mile radius housed dying men.

Walt Whitman's visitA famous poet named Walt Whitman visited

some civil war hospitals and wrote about all that

he saw. At some hospitals Whitman said soldiers

were lucky if they laid on a blanket that had

padding of pine, twigs, or leaves underneath. At

the hospital of the army of the Potomac, in

Falmouth, Virginia, he noted that there was a

heap of amputated limbs big enough to fill a cart

full.

A picture from Whitman's visit

If you were going to have surgery, your operating table

would most likely be an old door with two barrels

underneath. This "table" wasn't cleaned in between patients

so it was covered in blood and fifth from the patient before

you whose limb was chopped off with a saw.

Facts-To be a doctor in the civil war you

only had to take 2 years of medical

school

-operating rooms were stationed

closest to the outdoors so the

surgeons had plenty of light.

- assistants held lamps over the

operating table when performing

surgery at night.