Brown General Hospital was a military medical facility erected by the Union Army in Louisville, Kentucky, during the American Civil War. It was the largest of six general military hospitals scattered throughout the city. Army surgeons administered the hospital, aided by civilian agencies such as the United States Sanitary Commission and the U.S. Christian Commission.
The sprawling hospital was located near the Belknap campus of the University of Louisville, not far away from Fort McPherson. At times, especially in late 1864 through the end of the war, it housed more than a thousand patients. Conditions were often crowded, with insufficient medical staff (particularly surgeons and nurses) to fully treat the sick and wounded. [1]
A large number of ill soldiers from the Atlanta Campaign and other operations in the South were transported to Brown General Hospital for treatment; several died and were buried in a small cemetery adjoining the medical complex. Others were interred in Cave Hill Cemetery.
Brown became known as a leading regional center for the treatment of ophthalmic disorders, with Dr. Charles Porter Hart as chief eye surgeon. [2]
English-born Major Blencowe E. Fryer was in charge of the facility from June 1863 until June 1865. [3] Brown remained operational for more than a year after the war, when the army finally closed it and transferred the last remaining patients to other sites.
A hospital ship is a ship designated for primary function as a floating medical treatment facility or hospital. Most are operated by the military forces of various countries, as they are intended to be used in or near war zones. In the 19th century, redundant warships were used as moored hospitals for seamen.
John Maynard Woodworth was an American physician and member of the Woodworth political family. He served as the first Supervising-Surgeon General under president Ulysses S. Grant, then changed to Surgeon General of the United States Marine Hospital Service from 1871 to 1879.
Tripler Army Medical Center (TAMC) is a major United States Department of Defense medical facility administered by the United States Army in the state of Hawaii. It is the tertiary care hospital in the Pacific Rim, serving local active and retired military personnel along with residents of nine U.S. jurisdictions and forces deployed in more than 40 other countries in the region. Located on the slopes of Moanalua Ridge overlooking the Honolulu neighborhoods of Moanalua and Salt Lake, Tripler Army Medical Center's massive coral pink structure can be seen from any point in the Honolulu District. It also serves as headquarters of the Regional Health Command - Pacific.
Brigadier General George Miller Sternberg was a U.S. Army physician who is considered the first American bacteriologist, having written Manual of Bacteriology (1892). After he survived typhoid and yellow fever, Sternberg documented the cause of malaria (1881), discovered the cause of lobar pneumonia (1881), and confirmed the roles of the bacilli of tuberculosis and typhoid fever (1886).
The Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC), officially known as Walter Reed General Hospital (WRGH) until 1951, was the U.S. Army's flagship medical center from 1909 to 2011. Located on 113 acres (46 ha) in Washington, D.C., it served more than 150,000 active and retired personnel from all branches of the United States Armed Forces. The center was named after Walter Reed, a U.S. Army physician and sergeant who led the team that confirmed that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes rather than direct physical contact.
The National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers was established on March 3, 1865, in the United States by Congress to provide care for volunteer soldiers who had been disabled through loss of limb, wounds, disease, or injury during service in the Union forces in the American Civil War. Initially, the Asylum, later called the Home, was planned to have three branches: in the Northeast, in the central area north of the Ohio River, and in what was then considered the Northwest, the present upper Midwest.
John Brown Hamilton was an American physician and soldier. He was appointed the second Surgeon General of the United States from 1879 to 1891.
William Crawford Gorgas KCMG was a United States Army physician and 22nd Surgeon General of the U.S. Army (1914–1918). He is best known for his work in Florida, Havana and at the Panama Canal in abating the transmission of yellow fever and malaria by controlling the mosquitoes that carry these diseases. At the time, his strategy was greeted with considerable skepticism and opposition to such hygiene measures. However, the measures he put into practice as the head of the Panama Canal Zone Sanitation Commission saved thousands of lives and contributed to the success of the Canal's construction.
The United States Sanitary Commission (USSC) was a private relief agency created by federal legislation on June 18, 1861, to support sick and wounded soldiers of the United States Army during the American Civil War. It operated across the North, raised an estimated $25 million in Civil War era revenue and in-kind contributions to support the cause, and enlisted thousands of volunteers. The president was Henry Whitney Bellows, and Frederick Law Olmsted acted as executive secretary. It was modeled on the British Sanitary Commission, set up during the Crimean War (1853-1856), and from the British parliamentary report published after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Valley Forge General Hospital is a former military hospital in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. The hospital was near both Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Valley Forge. It was the only United States Army General Hospital named for a place.
Mower General Hospital was one of the largest Federal military hospitals during the American Civil War. Located across from the Reading Railroad depot in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, it operated from January 1863 through May 1865, and was closed with the cessation of the war.
Brigadier General Carl Rogers Darnall was a United States Army chemist and surgeon credited with originating the technique of liquid chlorination of drinking water. Chlorination has been an exceedingly important innovation in public health, saving innumerable lives.
The state of medical knowledge at the time of the Civil War was extremely primitive. Doctors did not understand infection, and did little to prevent it. It was a time before antiseptics, and a time when there was no attempt to maintain sterility during surgery. No antibiotics were available, and minor wounds could easily become infected, and hence fatal. While the typical soldier was at risk of being hit by rifle or artillery fire, he faced an even greater risk of dying from disease.
Railway surgery was a branch of medical practice that flourished in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It concerned itself with the medical requirements of railway companies. Depending on country, it included some or all of: general practice for railway staff, trauma surgery as a result of accidents on the railways, occupational health and safety, medico-legal activities regarding compensation claims against the company, and occupational testing.
The U.S. Ambulance Corps was a unit of the Union Army during the American Civil War. The Ambulance Corps was initially formed as a unit only within the Army of the Potomac, due to the effort of several Army officials, notably Dr. Jonathan Letterman, medical director of the Army of the Potomac, and William Hammond, the U.S. Surgeon-General. Until August 1862, the lack of trained ambulance drivers meant that the wounded had to wait a long time to receive medical care. This changed during the Battle of Antietam in September 1862 when his new system allowed the wounded men to be transferred quickly and prevent fewer deaths.
Jarvis U.S. General Hospital was a military hospital founded in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1861, at the beginning of the American Civil War, for the care of wounded Federal soldiers. The hospital was built on the grounds of Maryland Square, the former residence of the Steuart family, which had been confiscated by the Federal government at the outbreak of war. The hospital closed at the end of the war.
The history of medicine in the United States encompasses a variety of approaches to health care in the United States spanning from colonial days to the present. These interpretations of medicine vary from early folk remedies that fell under various different medical systems to the increasingly standardized and professional managed care of modern biomedicine.
Jedediah Hyde Baxter was a career United States Army officer and doctor who attained the rank of brigadier general as Surgeon General of the United States Army.
Charles Stuart Tripler was a United States Army brigadier general and surgeon. On March 8, 1867, he was posthumously promoted to brigadier general by President Andrew Johnson and the date of rank was backdated to March 13, 1865. The Tripler Army Medical Center in Oahu, Hawaii, is named in his honor.
Robert Crooke Wood, M.D. was an American Brevet Brigadier General, military physician and neurologist who was the Assistant Surgeon General throughout the American Civil War as well as serving in the Second Seminole War and the Mexican–American War. He was also the father of John Taylor Wood who would go on to serve in the Confederate States Navy as a captain.