The Civil War, lasting from 1861 to 1865, saw major change in the medical realm of American society.
During the Civil War, medicine in America was still very new, and wartime medicine resulted in great casualties. While Civil War medicine was characterized by surgical brutality, this brutality caused a shift to a more progressive era of medicine, giving way for people like Clara Barton and Joseph Lister to attempt to reform medicine.
This website will first look at Civil War medicine (specifically relating to surgery), and then look at its immediate impact on the American medical society via Clara Barton and Joseph Lister.
1. A Field Hospital, photograph, The History Rat, https://historyrat.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/civil-war-medicine/.
2. The Hercules of 1861, image, Before It's News, http://beforeitsnews.com/.
A Civil War political cartoon from the Civil War era (2)