The use of quinine during the Civil War.

  • Churchman, John W. (John Woolman), 1877-1937.
Date:
[1906]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The use of quinine during the Civil War. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    8/24 (page 4)
    t176] tion to fevers being increased by the use of impure water, and could it be otherwise? So miasma and impure water did valiant scapegoat service while the real sinner went all un- recognized, close at hand. During the summer season, wroteJDr. Little, describing conditions in middle Florida, our ears are assailed by the buzzing of myriads of mosquitoes in their murderous attacks. So formidable are their stings that cattle and deer are often compelled to leave the swamps and take up their residence in the pine woods to avoid them. With dead level, then, and a country half drained, with drenching rains and a broiling sun, with marshes and bogs and lagoons, with favorable wind and soil and unfavorable water, with myriads of murderous mosquitoes doing deadly work, it was no wonder that malaria, as Assistant Surgeon Porter put it, was the great primary and specific cause of most of the diseases of Florida. And so, indeed, the recruits from the North— [177] sent to this miasmatic morass to undertake for the Govern- ment the exceedingly trying and hazardous task of playing at hide and seek with the Seminoles—found the facts to be. But clinical lessons were learned to prove of national value later. Bleeding in malaria, for instance, was found to be injurious —universally and decidedly; and the favorite panacea was generally abandoned. Cathartics, given as a part of routine prophylaxis and as an adjuvant to quinine, were found ex- tremely beneficial; and Porter's statement that they are par- ticularly well borne by soldiers is easily believed when we learn that 8-10 grs. of calomel followed by oleum ricini, or 15-20 grs. of calomel alone were no uncommon dose. Tamarind water was found to be the best nourishing drink, rarely dis- agreeing with the stomach, always grateful and never causing the gastric pain and vomiting which occurred when limes or lemons were used. The value of capsicum was also amply demonstrated. But the great clinical lesson of the war was what it taught of quinine—establishing in part the wisdom of certain methods for its use, in part only corroborating what others had previously suggested. The reports made came chiefly from two United States posts—Fort White and Fort King. At the former, in the very unhealthy summer of 1839 —when fevers were prevailing throughout Florida and yellow