Margaret E. Humphreys

How did the Civil War change the course of American medicine? This project examines both medical events during the war, and the transformation of American medicine in the decades that followed to answer this question. Its broad approach encompasses the history of hospitals, public health, disease, therapeutics, nursing, medical theory, pharmacy, and concepts of race. The mid-nineteenth century was a time of great change in medicine, and the challenge is to determine what the war accelerated, delayed, or affected not at all. The task is complicated by the need to analyze the similarities and differences of the two warring nations.