The Civil War occurred during a lull in the progress of medicine in the U.S. Thus, it was not until 1867 that Joseph Lister published his paper on “The Antiseptic Principle of Surgery.” Later still, Louis Pasteur in 1880 and Robert Koch in 1882 demonstrated their revelations leading to the germ theory of disease. In this Civil War interim of four years, probably more than 700,000 deaths among the Union and Confederate military occurred. Infectious diseases (including enteric disorders) outnumbered battle wounds by a 2:1 ratio. Of course, battlefield wounds were also a terrible problem.
Although the clinical use of ether (ETH) was employed in 1842 (Crawford Long) and 1846 (William Morton), and chloroform (CHL) in 1847 (James Simpson), the use of these two agents was not generally popular in the medical cultures in the U.S. prior to the beginning of the Civil War. Rapid surgeons, the use of alcoholic...