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Harvard School of Public Health catalog and announcement
The School for Health Officers (precursor to the Harvard School of Public Health) was founded in 1913 by a joint committee of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its offices were located at 240 Longwood Avenue, Boston,…
Harvard School of Public Health catalog and announcement
The School for Health Officers (precursor to the Harvard School of Public Health) was founded in 1913 by a joint committee of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its offices were located at 240 Longwood Avenue, Boston,…
Traveling homeopathic pharmaceutical kit
Inscription inside reads: "This medicine case is one of the articles which belonged to the late 1st Lieut. Alfred R. Glover, who was killed in battle, June 14th, 1863, at Port Hudson, La., and was afterward returned to his home."
"The soldiers' manual : a hand book of useful and reliable information, showing who are entitled to pensions, increase, bounty, pay, etc. ... "
The manual's introduction states:
There is no particular class of wounds, injuries, or diseases, for which pensions are granted. It depends not so much upon the wound, injury, or disease itself, as upon the disabled condition arising therefrom. A…
There is no particular class of wounds, injuries, or diseases, for which pensions are granted. It depends not so much upon the wound, injury, or disease itself, as upon the disabled condition arising therefrom. A…
Zabdiel Boylston Adams (1829-1902)
A graduate of Harvard Medical School in 1853, Zabdiel Boylston Adams enlisted in 1861, joining the 7th Massachusetts Volunteers as an assistant surgeon. He was later a captain with the 56th Massachusetts Volunteers. Adams was wounded at Orange…
Radiograph of the right elbow of Henry Pickering Bowditch, showing fragments of bullet
Autograph presentation inscription "from E. A. Codman to Henry P. Bowditch" on verso
Lucius Manlius Sargent
Lucius M. Sargent, an 1857 graduate of Harvard Medical School, was an accomplished draughtsman and was appointed the first artist of the Massachusetts General Hospital. At the beginning of the war, he became a surgeon with the 2nd Massachusetts…
"Camp near Falmouth, Va."
This drawing, from 1863, is part of a letter to Sargent's young son, George; he wrote, I shall try and get leave to come home one of these days. I hope you will be glad to see me when I come. If you are not glad, I shall be very sorry, I can tell…
"It's too late, Dr., ye are."
The obstetrical scene depict is dated November 30, 1864. Dr. S. W. Abbott, a former surgeon with the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry, stated in 1893 that Sargent drew this while in camp in front of Petersburg. Nine days afterward he was killed by a…
Robert Ware
An 1856 graduate of Harvard Medical School and son of faculty member, John Ware (1795-1864), Robert Ware was an inspector with the United States Sanitary Commission and later a surgeon with the 44th Massachusetts Volunteers.
Robert Ware died of…
Robert Ware died of…
"To arms! To arms! : Men of Massachusetts! Your country is in danger! ...
Fill up the regiments then, and let not Massachusetts be behindhand in sending her quota of troops ... "
After his older brother, Henry Pickering Bowditch, enlisted, Charles, then finishing his sophomore year at Harvard College, sought his father's permission to do the same. When his request was refused, Bowditch wrote, "The country must be aroused to…
"Artificial limbs removed"
John Wales January enlisted in Company B of the 14th Illinois Cavalry and was captured in July, 1864. The reverse of the original print of this photograph gives January's account of his sufferings as a prisoner of war and the amputation of his own…
"Charles B. Johnson, age 21, Hospital Steward, 130th Illinois Infantry Volunteers."
Charles B. Johnson, who served with the 130th and 77th Illinois regiments and became a physician after the war.
Late in life, he published a memoir of his experiences with particular attention to medical care and diseases of soldiers during the…
Late in life, he published a memoir of his experiences with particular attention to medical care and diseases of soldiers during the…
Autograph letter signed : Whitehouse Landing, Va.,
to Fanny [Ware].
An 1856 graduate of Harvard Medical School and son of faculty member, John Ware (1795-1864), Robert Ware was an inspector with the United States Sanitary Commission and later a surgeon with the 44th Massachusetts Volunteers. Nearly fifty letters…
Autograph letter signed : Lynchburg, Va., to James T. Fields
A graduate of Harvard Medical School in 1853, Zabdiel Boylston Adams enlisted in 1861, joining the 7th Massachusetts Volunteers as an assistant surgeon. He was later a captain with the 56th Massachusetts Volunteers. Adams was wounded at Orange…
J. M. Da Costa
Jacob M. Da Costa was a Philadelphia physician who identified a cardiac phenomenon in soldiers which he termed "irritable heart."
"North Western Sanitary Fair, Chicago, Ill., 1865."
Columbia to left, waving American flag. At her feet, an eagle, shield with arrows, and boxes and barrels that are marked NW, NW SV and N.W. SAN COM. The sun setting behing mountains, artillery park, and lake with ships and monitor.
James Gowran
Gowran was treated at the Lincoln General Hospital in Washington.
Great Central Sanitary Fair at Philadelphia
Recto: "We gave our wealth for those who gave their health for us."
Verso: "In commemoration of the great central fair for the U.S. Sanitary Commission held at Philadelphia, June 1864."
Verso: "In commemoration of the great central fair for the U.S. Sanitary Commission held at Philadelphia, June 1864."
Soldiers' Fair at Springfield, Massachusetts
Recto: "Abraham Lincoln born Feb. 12, 1809."
Verso: "Soldiers' fair, Dec' 1864. Springfield, Mass."
Verso: "Soldiers' fair, Dec' 1864. Springfield, Mass."
Great fair for the Sanitary Commission held at New York.
Verso: "Blessed is the Giver. Great fair for the Sanitary Commission, New York, May, 1864."
"Armory Square Hospital Gazette," Armory Square, Washington, D.C. Vol. 2, no. 64. Page 1.
The Armory Square Hospital (now the site of the National Air and Space Museum) was active from August, 1862, through September, 1865, and many of the worst casualties of the Civil War battlefields were treated there. The patients and a former nurse…
"Declaration for the rerating and increase of an invalid pension."
His medical studies interrupted due to lack of funds, Philon Currier Whidden (1839-1900) enlisted as a private with the 4th Battalion of Rifles of the 12th Massachusetts Volunteers in June, 1861. He was severely wounded in the left leg at Antietam…
"The empty sleeve : or, The life and hardships of Henry H. Meacham, in the Union army / by himself."
Henry H. Meacham, a former carriage-maker in Massachusetts, joined the 32nd Massachusetts Volunteers; his arm was blown off by a shell near Petersburg in June, 1864. He printed and sold this pamphlet to make a living for himself and his ailing wife.…
Autograph letter signed : Baton Rouge, La., to [John Rogers, Roxbury, Mass.,?].
Alfred R. Glover's body was brought back to Massachusetts and buried in Forest Hills Cemetery. His wife, Mary Louisa Bodge Glover, died on September 10, 1864, of phthisis, though according to Henry A. Willis, historian of the 53rd Regiment, she, it…
Autograph letter signed : Washington, D.C., to [Abby Ann Newbold Cox, New York, N.Y.?]
Former professor of surgery at the New-York Medical College, Abraham L. Cox resigned his New York practice at the opening of the war and became the Surgeon-in-Chief, 1st Division, 20th Corps, of the Army of the Cumberland. "Hastened by the labor and…
Scrapbook on the death of Robert Ware
An 1856 graduate of Harvard Medical School and son of faculty member, John Ware (1795-1864), Robert Ware was an inspector with the United States Sanitary Commission and later a surgeon with the 44th Massachusetts Volunteers. Nearly fifty letters…
"The autobiography of a quack : and the case of George Dedlow"
This tale of a Civil War soldier, George Dedlow, who loses both his arms and his legs but continues to experience sensation in his missing limbs the phantom limb phenomenon was written by Silas Weir Mitchell and grew out of his experience with…
"A manual of military surgery; or, hints on the emergencies of field, camp and hospital practice."
S. D. Gross, professor of surgery at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, was one of the country's foremost operative surgeons. He designed this brief textbook on field surgery for emergencies: portable, easy of reference, always at hand.…
Autograph letter signed : Ely's Ford, Va., to [Jonathan Ingersoll Bowditch, Boston, Mass.].
Bowditch writes:
I write this to send by a waggon train that is going to Rappahannock Station tomorrow morning. They might just as well send us too if there was any one to take the responsibility of it but the comfort of 100 or so wounded men is…
I write this to send by a waggon train that is going to Rappahannock Station tomorrow morning. They might just as well send us too if there was any one to take the responsibility of it but the comfort of 100 or so wounded men is…
"Sanitary Commission bulletin," vol. 1, no. 2.
Issued twice monthly from November, 1863, to August, 1865, the Bulletin reported on the work of the Commission and the local sanitary fairs, accounts of battles and the experiences of prisoners of war, and provided a regular means to report on the…
"Sanitary Commission bulletin," vol. 1, no. 22.
Issued twice monthly from November, 1863, to August, 1865, the Bulletin reported on the work of the Commission and the local sanitary fairs, accounts of battles and the experiences of prisoners of war, and provided a regular means to report on the…
"Private L. H. Parham"
This report to the Senate outlines the treatment of Union prisoners of war by the Confederate forces at Belle Isle.
"Your committee, therefore, are constrained to say that they can hardly avoid the conclusion, expressed by so many of our released…
"Your committee, therefore, are constrained to say that they can hardly avoid the conclusion, expressed by so many of our released…
"The Salem leg, under the patronage of the United States government for the use of the army."
The injuries and amputations of Civil War soldiers fostered a booming industry in the manufacture and marketing of artificial limbs. The Salem Leg Company—Dr. Edward Brooks Peirson was the president of its board—achieved early prominence due to its…