"An exceptional look at the growth of health care spurred by the
Civil War?"--David J Kent, award-winning scientist and author of
Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln's Commitment to
Science and Technology Helped Modernize America
At the start of the Civil War, the medical field in America was
rudimentary, unsanitary, and woefully underprepared to address what
would become the bloodiest conflict on U.S. soil. However, in this
historic moment of pivotal social and political change, medicine was
also fast evolving to meet the needs of the time. Unprecedented strides
were made in the science of medicine, and as women and African Americans
were admitted into the field for the first time.
The Civil War marked a revolution in healthcare as a whole, laying the
foundations for the system we know today. In Healing a Divided Nation,
Carole Adrienne will track this remarkable and bloody transformation in
its cultural and historical context, illustrating how the advancements
made in these four years reverberated throughout the western world for
years to come.
Analyzing the changes in education, society, humanitarianism, and
technology in addition to the scientific strides of the period lends
Healing a Divided Nation a uniquely wide lens to the topic, expanding
the legacy of the developments made. The echoes of Civil War medicine
are in every ambulance, every vaccination, every woman who holds a
paying job, and in every Black university graduate. Those echoes are in
every response of the International and American Red Cross and they are
in the recommended international protocol for the treatment of prisoners
of war and wounded soldiers.
Beginning with the state of medicine at the outset of the war, when
doctors did not even know about sterilizing their tools, Adrienne
illuminates the transformation in American healthcare through primary
source texts that document the lives and achievements of the individuals
who pioneered these changes in medicine and society. The story that
ensues is one of American innovation and resilience in the face of
unparalleled violence, adding a new dimension to the legacy of the Civil
War.
