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HEBRON — Carolyn Lawson, trustee president of the Norlands Living History Center in Livermore, recently spoke to the Hebron Historical Society on the medical history of treating the Union Civil War soldiers.
She was accompanied by surgeon Richard Cylik. Lawson explained how quality and efficiency evolved during the war.
From only 98 surgeons when the war began the number grew to 11,000 and all of these were men who had met the two years of medical school required. The nurses were mostly men as well. Dorothea Dix of Maine helped recruit nearly 3000 women as well but they had no medical training and only performed assisting jobs.
In the first big battle, Bull Run, it took five days to clear the dead and wounded from the battle field. By the time of Gettysburg however the field was cleared at the end of each day because, in part, of the use of ambulances to facilitate the process of moving the wounded to the field hospitals.
Cylik accompanied Lawson and displayed many of the tools and equipment used in treating the wounded as well as the medications needed prior to amputations and other surgical procedures such as quinine, morphine , opium and ether.
The great increase in amputations from war wounds gave a significant rise to the prosthetics industry during and after the war. Strict sanitation procedures used today were not recognized then resulting in numerous infections and untold numbers of soldier fatalities from infectious diseases.
The next society program will feature Norma Salway speaking on “The Attic and Me, History Encountered in a Maine Attic.” The meeting is 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 26 at the Town Office, 351 Paris Road. The public is invited.
PHOTO: Carolyn Lawson and Richard Cylic speak to the Hebron Historical Society. (Submitted photo)
