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The following will give an idea of the economy that was enjoined in the matter of supplying general and post hospitals, the amounts stated being quantities for one year for one thousand troops: Acetic acid, 5 lbs.; arsenic, 5 oz.; muriatic acid, 8 lbs.; sulphuric acid, 8 lbs.; tartaric acid, 16 lbs.; sulphuric ether, 16 lbs.; alcohol 192 pint bottles; ammonia, 5 lbs; nitrate of silver, 8 oz.; assafoetida, 32 ozs.; camphor, 16 lbs.; catechu, 5 lbs.; cerea albae, 16 lbs.; chloroform, 8 lbs.; copabia, 40 lbs.; creosote, 16 ozs.; adhesive plaster, 40 yards; extract belladona, 16 oz.; fluidi buchu, 8 lbs.; columbae, 8 lbs.; gentian 8 lbs.; glycyrrhiza, 48 lbs.; hyoscyani, 16 ozs.; rhei, 8 lbs.; sarsaparilla, 16 lbs.; senna, 8 lbs.; valerian, 64 ozs.; mercuric chloride, 5 ozs.; iodine 16 ozs.; ammonia, 32 lbs.; magnesia, 5 lbs.; sulphate morphia, 16 drs.; myrrh, 5 lbs.; opium, 5 lbs.; ether, 5 lbs.; jalap, 32 ozs.; cantharides, 16 ozs.; aloes, 32 ozs.; sulphate quinine, 80 to 160 ozs.; sugar, 160 lbs.; strychnia, 8 drs.; digitalis, 32 ozs.; unguenti hydrarg, 8 lbs.
The same sparse quantities were applicable in hospital stores regulations and in the matter of surgical instruments, books, bedding, furniture, dressings, etc., and on the blanks furnished was printed the following: ‘It is urged that medicinal officers make requisition for such medicines only in the following tables as are deemed indispensable.’
Dr. J. Julian Chisholm, professor of surgery in the Medical College of South Carolina, published in 1861 his ‘Manuel of Military Surgery for the use of the Surgeons in the Confederate Army.’ This book was widely used, and was a valuable contribution to war surgery, containing, as it does, a most exhaustive collection of hints and instructions relative to the treatment of sick or wounded men in camp, on the field of battle and in the hospital. In his preface he says (in part), as follows: ‘As our entire army is made up of volunteers from every walk in life, so we find the surgical staff of the army composed of physicians without surgical experience. Most of those who composed the staff were general practitioners, whose country circuit gave them but little surgery and seldom presented a gunshot wound. Moreover, as our country had been enjoying an uninterrupted state of peace, the collecting of large bodies of men and retaining them in health, or the hygiene of armies, had been a study without an object and therefore of little interest.’
