Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein

The impact of medicine on the Civil War cannot be underestimated. There are endless opportunities for research. However, the antiquated terms, jargon, and Latin abbreviations utilized by nineteenth century physicians can bewilder modern scholars. As more monographs are written on the subject and more of the primary resources are plumbed, an encyclopedia of terminology and names becomes a critical tool. In her introduction to The Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine, Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein, manuscript librarian at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, described her own desire for just such a reference work when she was writing her dissertation on Samuel Hollingsworth Stout and the Confederate Army of the Tennessee hospitals. Schroeder-Lein wrote in the introduction of being puzzled by the term v.s. as a cause for hospital admission. After much research she learned that it was an abbreviation for vulnus sclopeticum, Latin for “gunshot wound.” Likewise, people reading nineteenth century journals, letters, or camp records might encounter antiquated medical terms such as erysipelas, catarrh, and blue mass. Aside from such medical terminology, Schroeder-Lein has included more than fifty biographical essays of medical professionals, volunteers, and soldiers with significant medical histories. She also defines the contemporary nature of necessities such as stretchers, bandages, and artificial limbs.
Schroeder-Lein includes more than two hundred entries and countless cross-references that, altogether, leave the modern researcher of Civil War medicine with few unanswered questions. The distinct bibliography following each entry suggests exceptional sources for further reading and research. While there are only ten pages of illustrations, set apart between pages 120 and 121, there are ample citations to works with more photographs, such as Orthopaedic Injuries of the Civil War: An Atlas of Orthopaedic Injuries and Treatments During the Civil War. More photographs and drawings, especially images accompanying the essays, would have been an appealing, if expensive, feature; but Schroeder-Lein’s encyclopedia stands alone as a thorough, representative, and lucid compilation of Civil War medicine-related topics.… (altro)