The National Museum of Civil War Medicine does a great job of putting the medical practices of the war into context. This new article recaps a speech on the subject, one that offers a darker view than the National Museum's. I can't resist a few comments.
* "Patients were not put to sleep; they were simply immobilized." Not sure if that's true across the board - maybe when chloroform stocks were low.
* "Young physicians saw the army as a way of education" - as they still do.
* "Some wounded were given gauze and morphine and then sent back to battle" - in my day, this was both practiced and parodied in the phrase "Take two aspirins and drive on." Gauze and morphine were carried by patrol medics.
* "When pus formed around a wound, doctors thought it was a good thing" - it still is, in the sense that the immune system is up and fighting.
* "A man had to have money to become a doctor..." Hello?