ABSTRACT
The late nineteenth century was a special period for the professions in the United States. The Civil War invigorated public respect for the learned expert, validating claims of privileged knowledge and expertise in a host of fields, not least of which was medical practice and science. The shared experience of regular and volunteer medical officers, contract surgeons, medical cadets, hospital orderlies and stewards, civilian nurses, line officers, wounded and sick soldiers, and the surviving family members redirected perceptions of an impotent medical profession governed by an educated elite. For the first time in the collective memory, health and wellness transcended local and regional perspectives to become a matter of national interest. The effects of camp diseases and fevers were fully revealed; no one was immune to the illnesses rife in camp and hospital. Likewise, the sad victims of battle—the blinded, crippled, and maimed—did not disappear from society’s view, but remained long-term reminders of the war, giving as much testimony to the ineffectiveness of surgical practice as to the cruelty of war itself.
