CIVIL WAR UNION HOSPITAL ADMITTANCE BOOK

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/31/2006

A rare 24pp. large 8vo. manuscript booklet. Entitled:" Record of Patients admitted to Tent No. 410 in Ward B, Gen. Field Hospital, Bridgeport, Ala. E.W. Curtis, Attendant, 1863. This patient admission and condition book details activities within Curtis's Ward from early October until the end of December of 1863. Within its pages one finds a wealth of information about the types of actual casualties treated, and the general physical condition of soldiers both in and out of battle, as the effects of disease claimed its share of victims as well. Upon admission, each of the more than 240 soldiers in the book were assigned a cot by its number and then the orderly recorded the individual's Name, Company, Regiment, the date and reason for their admission, and finally, the circumstances under which the soldier died or was discharged . As one would expect, in between battles the admissions were largely due to diseases, the causes of which were as yet unknown at the time of the Civil War. The prevailing cases of this sort were diagnosed as Diarrhea, though of course a number of illnesses could account for this symptom. Other soldiers maladies included "Typhoid Fever", "Tuberculosis", "Bronchial Catarrh" and:"Seminal weakness". Once battle was joined, however, the nature of the casualties changed immediately. During and after a battle the reasons for admission were wounds such as:"Shot in right leg and arm", "Left Tibia broken, shot in right thigh"," shot through lower jaw", and numerous other similar battle inflicted maladies... A number of admissions may have been attributable to what we now know as: Shell shock' .For instance, one man is diagnosed as having "Loss of Speech". It is also interesting to note that out of the many casualties admitted to the hospital, none were for:"Belly Wounds". Obviously stomach and abdomen wounds were a frequent occurrence, but at the time the survivability of men with stomach and abdomen wounds was extremely low, and were usually considered to be "mortal" Judging by the type of battle wounds admitted, it seems certain that a form of battlefield;"Triage" was being practiced, as conditions that were almost always beyond the skill of the medicine of the time, such as head and stomach wounds, simply were not admitted. This field hospital was obviously intended as a transitional:" First aid" sort of facility. After a number of days those soldiers deemed well enough to be transported were either sent to larger hospitals in cities such as Nashville, or in the lighter cases, simply returned to their units... As one would expect, many of the men that were too sick to move eventually died. In addition to Union casualties, the hospital also received and treated several groups of captured Confederates. As was frequently the case in the Civil War, these men evidently got along well with their Union Counterparts, with no obvious resentment or hatred being displayed on either side... All inmates of the hospital who were Confederates were identified as such by the orderly. One particular prisoner known as 'Orr", being a watch smith, is described by the orderly as having:" busied himself fixing watches for our boys and waiting on his comrades & generally making himself useful." Orr was later transferred to Nashville. Primary sources providing information on the treatment of the wounded are extremely scarce. This small book provides much significant information about actual medical treatment in Civil War hospitals and the nature of the conditions treated. Even the absence of information, such as the apparent non- admission of "belly wounds" says a great deal about the actual medical practices that were taking place. This book is invaluable as a first-hand source of information, as the writer has no agenda other than to keep as accurate a record a possible of the admissions of his patients and what happened to them after they got there. It is merely a record of what happened. The writer of this catalog description can readily testify to the rarity of Civil War patient admissions and treatment books, as he has seen only one other book of this sort in the past twenty years of buying and selling this sort of material. Some of the pages have become detached from the string which was used to bind the book, and the cover has moderate foxing and soiling, but all of the book is present, and the inside pages on which the critical information was written are still fairly bright and exceedingly easy to read. Though quite readable, because of the wear to the cover and some foxing on the extreme edges of some of the pages, we would rate this item as being in good to about very good condition.

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