HEBRON — Carolyn Lawson, trustee president of the Norlands Living History Center, Livermore, spoke to the Hebron Historical Society on the medical history of treating the Union Civil War soldiers.
The number of surgeons went to 98 at the beginning of the war to 11,000. The nurses were mostly men as well. Dorothea Dix of Maine helped recruit nearly 3,000 women, but they had no medical training and only performed assisting jobs.
In the first big battle, Bull Run, it took five days to clear the dead and wounded from the battlefield, Lawson said. By the time of Gettysburg however, the field was cleared at the end of each day, due in part to the use of ambulances to facilitate the process of moving the wounded to the field hospitals.
Surgeon Richard Cylik accompanied Lawson and displayed many of the tools and equipment used in treating the wounded. He also talked about the medications needed prior to amputations and other surgical procedures, such as quinine, morphine, opium and ether.
The next society program will feature Norma Salway speaking on “The Attic and Me, History Encountered in a Maine Attic.” It will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 26, at the Town Office, 351 Paris Road. The public is invited.
Carolyn Lawson, trustee president of Norlands Living History Center, left, and surgeon Richard Cylic speak to the Hebron Historical Society about the medical history of treating Union Civil War soldiers.
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