Alexander Thomas Augusta--physician, teacher and human rights activist.
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Commissioned surgeon of colored volunteers, April 4, 1863, with the rank of Major. Commissioned regimental surgeon on the 7th Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops, October 2, 1863. Brevet Lieutenant Colonel of Volunteers, March 13, 1865, for faithful and meritorious services--mustered out October 13, 1866. So reads the tombstone at Arlington National Cemetery of Alexander Thomas Augusta, the first black surgeon commissioned in the Union Army during the Civil War and the first black officer-rank soldier to be buried at Arlington Cemetery. He was also instrumental in founding the institutions that later became the hospital and medical college of Howard University and the National Medical Association. (+info)
Physical and mental health costs of traumatic war experiences among Civil War veterans.
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BACKGROUND: Hundreds of thousands of soldiers face exposure to combat during wars across the globe. The health effects of traumatic war experiences have not been adequately assessed across the lifetime of these veterans. OBJECTIVE: To identify the role of traumatic war experiences in predicting postwar nervous and physical disease and mortality using archival data from military and medical records of veterans from the Civil War. DESIGN: An archival examination of military and medical records of Civil War veterans was conducted. Degree of trauma experienced (prisoner-of-war experience, percentage of company killed, being wounded, and early age at enlistment), signs of lifetime physician-diagnosed disease, and age at death were recorded. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: The US Pension Board surgeons conducted standardized medical examinations of Civil War veterans over their postwar lifetimes. Military records of 17,700 Civil War veterans were matched to postwar medical records. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Signs of physician-diagnosed disease, including cardiac, gastrointestinal, and nervous disease; number of unique ailments within each disease; and mortality. RESULTS: Military trauma was related to signs of disease and mortality. A greater percentage of company killed was associated with signs of postwar cardiac and gastrointestinal disease (incidence risk ratio [IRR], 1.34; P < .02), comorbid nervous and physical disease (IRR, 1.51; P < .005), and more unique ailments within each disease (IRR, 1.14; P < .005). Younger soldiers (<18 years), compared with older enlistees (>30 years), showed a higher mortality risk (hazard ratio, 1.52), signs of comorbid nervous and physical disease (IRR, 1.93), and more unique ailments within each disease (IRR, 1.32) (P < .005 for all), controlling for time lived and other covariates. CONCLUSIONS: Greater exposure to death of military comrades and younger exposure to war trauma were associated with increased signs of physician-diagnosed cardiac, gastrointestinal, and nervous disease and more unique disease ailments across the life of Civil War veterans. Physiological mechanisms by which trauma might result in disease are discussed. (+info)
Prevalence of major eye diseases among US Civil War veterans, 1890-1910.
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Antietam: aspects of medicine, nursing and the civil war.
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Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia met the Army of the Potomac under George B. McClellan at Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland on September 17, 1862. Before the day was done, nearly 23,000 men were killed, wounded, or missing, memorializing Antietam as the bloodiest single day in American military history. Dr. Jonathan Letterman, the Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac, Clara Barton, the "Angel of the Battlefield," and Dr. Hunter McGuire, Chief Surgeon to and Medical Director of General Stonewall Jackson's Corps, were among the nursing and medical personnel engaged on that historic day. These three individuals provided medical and nursing care to the casualties at Antietam (and other Civil War battles), but perhaps more importantly, developed systems of casualty management that brought order and humanity to the battlefield. These models of care continue today in modern military medicine. (+info)
Fertility in New York State in the pre-Civil War era.
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Knowledge is quite limited about the extent and social correlates of marital fertility decline for the United States in the early part of the nineteenth century. Manuscripts from the New York State census of 1865 indicate a very slow decline in marital fertility during the initial decades of the nineteenth century and more rapid decline as the Civil War approached. Little evidence of fertility control within marriage is found for the very oldest women in the sample, but analysis of parity progression ratios indicates that some control had emerged by the midpoint of the nineteenth century. Fertility decline was most evident in the urban, more economically developed areas, but our data also indicate that the limited availability of agricultural land may have affected the transition. While a marital fertility transition occurred in nineteenth-century New York, many couples in various geographic areas and social strata continued to have quite high levels of fertility, indicating difficulties that were probably faced in controlling reproduction. (+info)
Clinical risk and judicial reasoning: Eugene F. Sanger, AM, MD, 1829-1897.
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