Tips for Army Surgeons

In 1862, Charles H. Stubbs, a medical student who would become assistant surgeon with Pennsylvania’s 40th Infantry, wrote to the Philadelphia journal The Medical and Surgical Reporter. He warned that soldiers were dying on battlefields from hemorrhage caused by wounds that were not themselves fatal, because medical help did not reach them in time. Citing reports from Pea Ridge, Winchester, and Shiloh, Stubbs urged military surgeons to consider how to better aid the wounded.