In July 1862, Burt Green Wilder left Boston to join Dr. Francis Brown, a surgeon working at Judiciary Square Hospital, one of the new army pavilion hospitals in Washington, D.C. Wilder had just finished his degree in comparative anatomy at Harvard, and the chance to assist Brown rather than serve as a soldier in the army was appealing. For the next ten months Wilder worked in the hospital's wards as a medical cadet. Although he lacked formal medical training, he had aptitude, ability, and an advanced knowledge of anatomy. These qualities were increasingly valued in a medical department being reformed by the new surgeon general, William Hammond, who demanded a more scientific approach to medical care and to the creation and dissemination of medical knowledge. Forty-five years after the war ended Wilder began to draft his recollections of an era that had transformed him personally and radically altered American medicine. Richard M. Reid's introduction captures the ways the war dramatically reconfigured the American medical landscape. Prior to the war, the medical community was badly fragmented, and elite physicians felt undervalued by the American public. The war offered them the chance to assert their professional control and to make medicine more scientific and evidence-based. The introduction also includes an extensive historiographical analysis of Civil War medicine and situates Wilder's recollections in the changing direction of the field. Wilder's manuscript, largely finished but never published, is written with humor and grace and provides a revealing eyewitness account of Civil War relief services and hospital work. The army hospitals, dramatically different from the prewar institutions, became centers of medical innovation and analytical record keeping. Even medical cadets such as Wilder conducted postmortems and were encouraged to submit specimens of combat-related injuries to Hammond's newly created Army Medical Museum. His discussions of the day-to-day practice in the hospital, the war's expansion of medical knowledge, the duties of medical cadets, scientific activity, and gender relations are particularly compelling. Recollections of a Civil War Medical Cadet provides an important source to understand wartime medicine, the impact of the conflict on American medicine in the nineteenth century, and the little discussed role of the medical cadet in the army medical system.

Guiding us to better communication about illness, treatment, and health through simple art practices Living at the intersection of medicine and art, medical illustration is a field that is not well understood by most--especially by physicians and other healthcare practitioners. In this comprehensive and practical guide to medical illustration, pediatric surgeon François I. Luks provides a useful overview of the field and explains its essential function in facilitating true communication between healthcare providers and their patients. MedSpeak Illuminated: The Art and Practice of Medical Illustration begins with a history of the field, including some of its historical controversies and darker aspects, such as the relative lack of diversity in medical illustrations. Currently, Luks asserts, an increased recognition that medical illustration has long been complicit in promoting a single (white, male) view of health and disease has begun to result in changes to practice and content. He argues that increasing diversity and equity--in illustration and among illustrators--is ultimately good for our health. As he moves forward to describe its place in our current healthcare systems and educational programs, Luks also points to the scientific breakthroughs specifically made by illustrators. In addition, he highlights trends in medical education that emphasize humanism and compassion, thus making the need for better methods of communication even more urgent. MedSpeak Illuminated offers simple advice and techniques that can be followed by even the nonartists among us to use illustration in medical settings as part of our conversations. Like the illuminated manuscripts of old, MedSpeak Illuminated provides visual components for better and deeper understanding, an invaluable resource for students, practitioners, and all those committed to becoming better communicators and more caring professionals.

This richly detailed biography of Andrew Jackson Donelson (1799-1871) sheds new light on the political and personal life of this nephew and namesake of Andrew Jackson. A scion of a pioneering Tennessee family, Donelson was a valued assistant and trusted confidant of the man who defined the Age of Jackson. One of those central but background figures of history, Donelson had a knack for being where important events were happening and knew many of the great figures of the age. As his uncle's secretary, he weathered Old Hickory's tumultuous presidency, including the notorious "Petticoat War." Building his own political career, he served as US chargé d'affaires to the Republic of Texas, where he struggled against an enigmatic President Sam Houston, British and French intrigues, and the threat of war by Mexico, to achieve annexation. As minister to Prussia, Donelson enjoyed a ringside seat to the revolutions of 1848 and the first attempts at German unification. A firm Unionist in the mold of his uncle, Donelson denounced the secessionists at the Nashville Convention of 1850. He attempted as editor of the Washington Union to reunite the Democratic party, and, when he failed, he was nominated as Millard Fillmore's vice-presidential running mate on the Know-Nothing party ticket in 1856. He lived to see the Civil War wreck the Union he loved, devastate his farms, and take the lives of two of his sons.

Acclaimed author Gail Jarrow, recipient of a 2019 Robert F. Sibert Honor Award, explores the science and grisly history of U.S. Civil War medicine, using actual medical cases and first-person accounts by soldiers, doctors, and nurses. The Civil War took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans and left countless others with disabling wounds and chronic illnesses. Bullets and artillery shells shattered soldiers' bodies, while microbes and parasites killed twice as many men as did the battles. Yet from this tragic four-year conflict came innovations that enhanced medical care in the United States. With striking detail, this nonfiction book reveals battlefield rescues, surgical techniques, medicines, and patient care, celebrating the men and women of both the North and South who volunteered to save lives.

This social and cultural history of Civil War medicine and science sheds important light on the question of why and how anti-Black racism survived the destruction of slavery. During the war, white Northerners promoted ideas about Black inferiority under the guise of medical and scientific authority. In particular, the Sanitary Commission and Army medical personnel conducted wartime research aimed at proving Black medical and biological inferiority. They not only subjected Black soldiers and refugees from slavery to substandard health care but also scrutinized them as objects of study. This mistreatment of Black soldiers and civilians extended after life to include dissection, dismemberment, and disposal of the Black war dead in unmarked or mass graves and medical waste pits. Simultaneously, white medical and scientific investigators enhanced their professional standing by establishing their authority on the science of racial difference and hierarchy. Drawing on archives of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, recollections of Civil War soldiers and medical workers, and testimonies from Black Americans, Leslie A. Schwalm exposes the racist ideas and practices that shaped wartime medicine and science. Painstakingly researched and accessibly written, this book helps readers understand the persistence of anti-Black racism and health disparities during and after the war.