A manual of military surgery : for the use of surgeons in the Confederate States Army; with explanatory plates of all useful operations / By J. Julian Chisolm.

  • Chisolm, Julian John, 1830-1903.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of military surgery : for the use of surgeons in the Confederate States Army; with explanatory plates of all useful operations / By J. Julian Chisolm. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    In putting forth this Manual of Military Surgery for the use of Surgeons in the Confederate service, I have been led by the desire to mitigate, if possible; the horrors of war,*fts seen in its most frightful phase in military hospitals. As our entire army is made up of volunteers from every walk of life, so we find the surgical staff of the army composed of physicians without sur- gical experience. Most of. those who now compose the surgical staff were general practitioners, whose country circuit gave them but little surgery, and very seldom presented a gunshot wound. As our country had been enjoying an uninterrupted state of peace, the collecting of large bodies of men, and retain- ing them in health, or the hygiene of armies, had been a study without an object, and, therefore, without interest. When the war suddenly broke upon us, followed immediately by the blockading of our ports, all communication was cut off with Europe, which was the expected source of our surgical informa- tion. As there had been no previous demand for works on mil- itary surgery, there were none to be had in the country, and our physicians were-compelled to follow the army to the battle with- out instruction. No work on military surgery could be pur- chased in the Confederate States. As military surgery, which is one of expediency, differs so much from civil practice, the want of proper information has already made itself seriously felt. In times of war, where invasion threatens, every citizen is ex- pected to do his duty to his state. 1 saw no better means of showing my willingness to enlist in the cause than by preparing a manual of instruction for the use of the army, which might be the means of saving the lives and preventing the mutilation of many friends and countrymen. The present volume contains the fruit of European experience, as dearly purchased in re- cent campaigning. Besides embodying the experience of the