Battlefield Surgery 101: From the Civil War to Vietnam
Photo Gallery
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Battlefield Surgery 101: From the Civil War to Vietnam
Selected Photographs From the National Museum of Health and Medicine
Based on the Exhibit by J. T. H. Connor, Michael G. Rhode, and J. Carey
Crane
Due to conservation concerns, all images in this exhibit are reproductions
of photographs in the Museum's collections and may vary in color and size
from the originals. Captions for the photographs, including ranks, are the
unaltered original wording, with any additional new material appearing in
brackets.
But one great Cannon at one shot may spoyle and kill an hundred
men.....[T]his infernall Engine roares as it strikes, and strikes as it
roares, sending at one and the same time the deadly bullet into the breast
and the horrible noise into the eare. Wherefore we all of us rightfully
curse the author of so pernicious an Engine; on the contrary praise those to
the skies, who endeavour by words and pious exhortations to dehort Kings
from their use, or else labour by writing and operation to apply medicines
to wounds made by these Engines.
-Ambroise Paré
16th-century French military surgeon
Keynes G, ed. The Apologie and Treatise of Ambroise Paré: Containing the
Voyages Made Into Divers Places With Many of His Writings Upon Surgery. New
York, NY: Dover Publicatiions, Inc; 1968: 136.
BATTLEFIELD SURGERY 101:
From the Civil War to Vietnam
Medicines and how they were applied to gunshot wounds have changed
considerably from Ambroise Paré's day to the present. But a bullet to the
chest remained a serious, if not fatal, wound from the 16th century down to
the Civil War era and continuing to the years of the Vietnam War. Throughout
these centuries surgery on the battlefield was practiced under the harshest
of conditions. Frequently the operations were successful with lives being
saved, but all too often the best efforts of the surgical team were in vain
as they witnessed their soldier-patients die due to the severity of their
injuries.
Artifacts in this exhibit illustrate some of the ways and means of treating
soldiers on and off the battlefield. The selected medics' kits, field
dressings, surgical sets, and prosthetic limbs dating from the early 1900s
represent only a portion of the museum's holdings in military medicine over
the ages. Making up the bulk of this exhibit is over 100 photographs
spanning about 100 years from the Civil War to the Vietnam War. Battlefield
Surgery 101 reveals the evolution of the military operating room and the
challenges of the men and women who work there. Drawn from the holdings of
the National Museum of Health and Medicine, Armed Forces Institute of
Pathology, the images in this exhibit examine the breadth and depth of
military surgical activities.
The camera became a new and useful medical instrument within a decade or so
after photography's invention during the 1840s. Throughout the Civil War,
the Army Medical Museum (now known as the National Museum of Health and
Medicine, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology) amassed a collection of
thousands of original photographs of wounded soldiers, pathological
conditions, and other medical subjects.
Over the next century camera equipment became smaller and less cumbersome,
multiframe film in rolls replaced single glass plate negatives, and exposure
times shortened. These changes in technology allowed photographers to
capture more action-oriented scenes, although some shots were still staged.
During this time photographers turned up at both the bedside and the
battlefield to record medical scenes that ranged from the mundane to the
heroic to the ghastly. The images that they took served many purposes:
training, military intelligence, forensic evidence, propaganda, and
recreation.
Many of these images are being displayed to the public for the first time.
Due to the graphic nature of some of them, some people may be shocked. In
selecting the photographs, the exhibit's curators tried not to be
sensationalistic. Rather, they wished to present realistic perspectives of
the danger and challenges facing both fighting soldiers and the men and
women whose duty it is to care for them when they are in harm's way.
J. T. H. Connor, Ph.D.
Michael G. Rhode
Curators
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