Civil War Pharmacy : A History of Drugs, Drug Supply and Provision, and Therapeutics for the Union and Confederacy

doi:10.1201/9780367806736

Book

ABSTRACT

Examine a previously unexplored aspect of Civil War military medicine!

Here is the first comprehensive examination of pharmaceutical practice and drug provision during the Civil War. While numerous books have recounted the history of medicine in the Civil War, little has been said about the drugs that were used, the people who provided and prepared them, and how they were supplied. This is the first book to provide detailed discussion of the role of pharmacy. Among the topics covered in this essential volume are the duties of medical purveyors, the role of the hospital steward, and the nature and state of medical substances commonly used in the 1860s. This last subject would become a matter of considerable controversy and ultimately cost William Hammond, the brilliant and innovative Surgeon General, his career in the Union Army.

This richly detailed book shows why the South found drug provision especially difficult and describes the valiant efforts of Confederate sympathizers to run the Union blockade in order to smuggle in their precious cargoes. You’ll also learn about the scurrilous privateers who were out to make a personal fortune at the expense of both the Union and the Confederacy. In addition, Civil War Pharmacy illuminates the systematic effort of pharmacists, physicians, and botanists to derive from Southern plants adequate substitutes for foreign substances that were difficult, if not impossible, to obtain in the Confederacy.

In this painstakingly researched yet highly readable book, Michael A. Flannery, co-author of the critically acclaimed America’s Botanico-Medical Movements: Vox Populi, examines all these topics and more. In addition, he assesses the relative successes and failures of the pharmaceutical aspect of health care at the time—successes and failures that affected every man in army camps and in the field.

Civil War Pharmacy: A History of Drugs, Drug Supply and Provision, and Therape

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword, Acknowledgments, Part I: Setting the Stage—Civilian Aspects of Pharmacy During the Civil War, Chapter 1. Civil War Pharmacy and Medicine: Comparisons and Contexts, The Historiography of Civil War Pharmacy, American Pharmacy and Medicine at Midcentury, Pharmacy and Medicine in the Civil War: An Overview, The Role of Disease, Chapter 2. The State of Pharmacy in America, 1861, Education, Manufacturing, Community Practice, Southern Medicine and Pharmacy, Summary, Chapter 3. Angels of Mercy: Women and Civil War Pharmacy, The Woman’s Role: A Call to Plain Positive Duty”, The United States Sanitary Commission, Women in the South, Women and Civil War Pharmacy: An Appraisal, Part II: Pharmacy in the Union, Chapter 4. The Principals: Medical Purveyors and Hospital Stewards, Official Duties and Responsibilities of Medical Purveyors, Official Duties and Responsibilities of Hospital Stewards, Rank and Status of Medical Purveyors and Hospital Stewards, Chapter 5. The Supplies: Drug Distribution and Manufacturing, Drug Acquisition and Supply: Organizational and Operational Aspects, Free Enterprise Joins the War: Civilian Suppliers, The Laboratories, Chapter 6. The Medicines: A Military Materia Medica and Therapeutics, The Ailments, The Substances, Prescribing and Dispensing in Camp and Hospital, Unit and Patient Case Studies, Chapter 7. The Remedies of Choice: Calomel and Quinine, The Mastodon Unharnessed, Quinine: Always and Everywhere”