The Prescott daily news., 1914-05-19
SURGICAL EXPERIENCES IN THE
 CIVIL WAR

VI IL W AN
 Among the last papers written bv pr. S. Weir Mitchell, the celebrated neurologist and novelist of Philadel- phia, was an address given before the Physicians Club of Chicago. in Feb- ruary of 1913. Dr. Mitchell died last January. The paper has just been published in a recent issue of The Journal of the American Medical As- sociation. Forming a series of per sonal "reminiscences of Dr. MitchelPs experiences as an army surgeon in the Civil War, prepared for an audience of physicians it presents some pie lures of conditions in hospitals and on the field that can be found probably nowhere else. Dr. Mitchell's account of the organization and management of the Army Medical Service in 1861 IS of especial interest at present, when military questions are particularly prominent in the public mind. The Army Medical Service in 1861 was much less prepared for active duty than is our Medical Service to-day. The whole medical department of the Army consisted of thirty surgeons and Ieighty-three assistants. Of these. twenty-four resigned to join the Con- federate Army. The retirement on account of age of the surgeons general resulted in the appointment of Dr. William A. Hammond from the rank of assistant surgeon to that of head of the medical service. He fell at once into the management of an enormous business, spreading over great expanses of country, increas- ing and making fresh demands each week, until in the last year of the war the Army Medical Service was spending for ice alone more than the entire cost of medical service in time of peace. In the beginning, however, hospitals and equipment were lacking. "In the early days of the war;" Dr. Mitchell said, i've seized on churches factories, barns and even large pri- vate houses as homes for the wound ed" But these soon proved insuffi- cient. SurgeonDunster, under the or ders of Litterman, the surgeon-gen- eral of the Army of the Patomac, built at Parksburg, Va, temporary hospital of rough sheds. His plans later developed into the enormous pa vilion hospitals built near the large cities and used for the reception of convalescent chronic cases and wound ed who could be moved. Some idea of the magnitude of the work of the Medical Service can be gotten from the fact that the hospitals in and around Washington later contained over thirty thousands beds, while near Philadelphia were constructed army hospitals with capacity of twenty six thousand By degrees" said Dr. Mitchell. the service in these enor- nous temporary hospitals became ad- mirable, and the American surgeons, quick to learn, soon were equal to the task which confronted them" In the days before antiseptic surgery had developed, the mortality from gum shot wounds and compound fractures was far greater than it would be today, while the dreaded hospital gan grene, erysipelas, scurvy and other diseases which are today only curiosi- ties in well-regulated hospitals were responsible for a heavy loss of life. 1t was found that the wounded men did better in barns than in houses, and best of all in tents. At the close of the war there were POI gen ral hospitals under the care of the government, the management of these immense establishments having be- come by that time a marvel of efficien- cy.