Hard Rubber
Medicine
Syringes Used During Civil War
Black hard rubber
syringes from makers like Goodyear Rubber Co. were purchased by the Union
Medical Department during the Civil War for various medical procedures.
Among those procedures were for rectal infusion of liquids, application of
medication to the eyes, ears, penis, and other orifices.
With the discovery of hard
rubber the field of rubber's usefulness was still further largely
extended. The prosperity of the early rubber
companies which took their rise from Goodyear's patent in 1844,
was sufficient to warrant them in paying Daniel Webster, who defended
the patent in a seven years' lawsuit—,finally adjudicated in 1852,—a fee
of $25,000—the largest legal fee that had at that time been paid in this
country.
The Civil War gave a great impetus to the
rubber industry. This was particularly
true of the clothing branch; blankets were needed for the soldiers, and
the government gave out large contracts. The boot and shoe
industry increased rapidly with the other branches of
rubber manufacture, so that, from an
output in 1860 of the value of $795,000, the yearly output in 1870 had
increased to $8,000,000.
List of Hospital supply inventory and identification from 1865
The
following article from Tiemann's catalog illustrates one of the uses of these
syringes as does the collage of syringes illustrates the variety:
