Civil War era medical books purchased by the U. S.
Army Medical Department
From the article by Miles on the creation of the
Surgeon' General's Library
(The following are the personal edited research
notes of Michael Echols, the source of which may or
may not be completely documented)
At the start of the Civil War, the
Surgeon General's Office created a medical library and purchased various
medical books to be distributed to the surgeon's and field hospitals.
The following is a list of some of the books ordered from various
publishers for distribution to the Union surgeons.
Surgeon General's Office Library 1861
SGO's library years later in the Ford Theater
In 1861, the following were provided
to the surgeons and hospitals, THIS IS NOT ALL THE BOOKS PURCHASED AND
MARKED BY THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT, JUST THE ONES IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE
WAR!
Surgeons in the Union Army at the beginning of the
Civil
War received the following text books:
Conspectus,
William J. E. Wilson's
Practical and
Surgical Anatomy,
Thomas Watson's
Practice of Physic,
Erichsen's
Surgery.
Surgeons at Union hospitals and posts
received the same as above, plus:
-
George Fowne's
Elementary Chemistry,
-
The
Dispensatory of the
United States,
-
Robley Dunglison's
Medical Dictionary,
-
Alfred S. Taylor's
Medical Jurisprudence,
-
Ellis'
Formulary.
Under the direction of the new surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes, the library
was expanded and the following texts were ordered from publishers.
.
Barnes,
who had been in the Army since 1840, was appointed Surgeon General on August
22, 1864. He retained, with few exceptions, the same standard medical books
chosen by his predecessor for distribution.
The Surgeon General's Library, the
collection that would in 1956 become the National Library of Medicine, was
arguably the Medical Department's most valuable and lasting contribution to
medical science developed in the decades immediately following the Civil War. As
new developments in the world of medical science began to grow in number with
great rapidity, the nation's best-educated physicians came increasingly to rely
on medical libraries, particularly the Surgeon General's Library, for the
information that kept them abreast of the work of their colleagues around the
world. Much of the library's growth in size and fame resulted from the work of
Billings. Working aggressively and imaginatively to increase the library's
holdings, he made the most of the meager funds allotted that institution by
astute buying and by trading copies of the departments various publications for
the books, journals, reports, manuscripts, letters, pamphlets, and portraits he
believed it should have. By 1875 the library had copies of about 75 percent of
the available periodical literature and the largest collection of pamphlets in
the country. To classify the collection, after some experimentation, Billings
adopted a revised version of the system used by the Royal College of Physicians
in London, employing a series of 5" by 7" cards to keep track of the library's
holdings.
A large number of these
medical texts
were purchased during the war:
(The numbers are how many were ordered for
distribution to the hospitals and surgeons during the War) Click
here information on the SGO Library by
Wyndam Miles
7,317 copies of Bumstead onVenereal
Diseases,
5,370 of Erichsen's Surgery,
4,850 of the Dispensatory of the United
States,
3,895 Power's Surgical Anatomy,
3,442 Gray's Anatomy,
3,254 Watson's Practice of Medicine,
3,251 Stephen Smith's Principles of
Surgery,
3,239 Woodward's Hospital Steward's
Manual,
3,100 Parkes' Hygiene, Parkes, Edmund,
A Manual of Practical Hygiene
2,671 Sargent's Minor Surgery,
1,905 Dunglison's Medical Dictionary,
1,640 Fowne's Chemistry,
1,542 Bennett s Practice of Medicine
1,412 Dalton's Physiology,
1,333 Parrish's Pharmacy.
1,237 Hartshorn's Principles of Medicine,
1,178 Longmore's Gunshot Wounds,
1,062 Beck's Jurisprudence,
1,024 Stille's Therapeutics,
and lesser quantities of: McLeod's
Surgical Notes, Virchow's Pathology, Jones' Diseases of the
Eye, Bedford's Mid-wifery, Toynbee's Diseases of the Ear,
Wilson's Diseases of the Skin, and Guthrie's Commentaries
The above text books may or may
not be marked for the Army Hospital Department or Medical Department
U.S. Army Medical Department |
U.S. Army Hospital Department
U.S. Army Medical Department |
U.S. Army Hospital Department |
Inventory of
medical books from Ward "H" at N.Y. Conesus Centre Army Hospital 1865
|
