Surgical notes of cases of gunshot injuries occurring during the advance of the Army of the Cumberland in the summer of 1863 / by I. Moses.

  • Moses, Israel, 1821-1870.
Date:
[1864?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical notes of cases of gunshot injuries occurring during the advance of the Army of the Cumberland in the summer of 1863 / by I. Moses. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    well ventilated, but at the corner of the public square, and being exposed to noise and dust, containing fifty sick and twenty-one wounded. Hosp. Div. No. 8 was the smallest and least adapted for its purposes ; it contained thirty-seven sick ; clean and well ventilated. The smallpox hospital was about two miles from the city near a fine spring, isolated and composed of tents. It generally contained about fifteen patients ; the type of disease was mild, and there were few deaths. It con- tains now (July 30) eighteen cases. The contrabrand hospital is designed for the sick blacks, and consists of a portion of a large building for females and children, and tents for males. There were usually about fifty inmates, their diseases being chiefly fevers and diarrhoea, with various forms of scrofulous affections; the mortality was large. The Soule Seminary, a fine large building, in the centre of a large open space at the verge of the town, and particularly well adapted for a hospital, contained about sixty Confederate wounded. The cases were of the gravest character, being those who could not be removed. After the battle of Stone River, this building was crowded with wounded, who, on the retreat of Bragg, were left under the care of their own medical officers. The mortality had been frightful, and hospital gangrene, pyaemia and erysipelas very rife. Every facility was afforded for their care and comfort, but filth and dirt of every description were allowed to accumulate inside and outside, under the beds, in the fireplaces, halls and kitchens. The persons of the patients were rarely or never washed, and the surgical dressings were carelessly applied. I broke up this den a few days after my arrival, and removed the patients to the Baptist Seminary, a fine building beyond the town, standing alone, well ventilated, and admirably adapted for a hospital. It was occupied by about the same number of Confederate wounded. The same remarks may be applied to the police and condition of patients here as in the last-named hospital. Some improvement in cleanliness and comfort was made, and several cases placed in teuts outside. Some of the cases presented remark- able examples of the powers of nature under most forbidding circumstances in the process of cure. There were several men who had received commi- nuted fractures of the thigh by minie balls, and where union had taken place, but with great shortening and deformity. One man had lost the larger portion of the shaft of the tibia and fibula, who is now recovering with regeneration of the bone, though there is not firm union. The number of wounded confederates left at this post after the battle of Stone River was about fifteen hundred, of whom more than six hundred died. This hospital was broken up about June 1st, all but ten of the worst cases being sent north ; these ten, incapable of being removed, were sent to the field hospital, and have done well, except one, who having extensive hospital gangrene, sank, though not until the process was checked and the wound assumed a healthy appearance.