Doctors attempting to deal with the carnage wrought by the Civil War faced more difficult challenges than the sheer number of the wounded. Fought at the very end of what is known as “the medical Middle Ages,” the Civil War predated modern knowledge of bacteria and antiseptics. Doctors, who were then deemed fully trained after only a two-year course of study, had few diagnostic tools beyond their own reckoning at hand. While medical science enjoyed several advances during the Civil War, the doctors and hospitals in the Southern states faced overwhelming casualties with few supplies and inadequate personnel. By focusing on facilities in Virginia�s capitol, Mrs. Calcutt illustrates how exhausted resources rapidly defeated southern doctors' heroic efforts. Richmond's Wartime Hospitals covers the more than fifty hospitals located in Richmond during the Civil War period, including each facility's location, dates of operation, and surgeon in charge. Where archival information is available, Mrs. Calcutt includes detailed descriptions of the buildings, first-person accounts of day-to-day operations, and other historical anecdotes.
