FR01-01 CIVIL WAR MANUALS OF MILITARY SURGERY- SAMUEL D. GROSS VS. JULIAN J. CHISOLM

Abstract

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Samuel D. Gross (1805-1884) was a U.S. Surgeon and proto-urologist who influenced the rise of American surgery. But his counterpart from Charleston, Julian John Chisolm (1830-1903) was equally compelling surgeon and author. Both surgeons produced the definitive Manuals of Military Surgery utilized by each side during the American Civil War. METHODS: A review of the literature of all aspects of both Gross and Chisolm was undertaken with review of each of their published Manuals of Military Surgery in 1861 editions. Gross is memorialized by his own titanic autobiography in two volumes, whereas Chisolm is recalled by the now rare 1930 memoir housed at the rare books library of the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine. RESULTS: At the outset of hostilities between the Union North and the Confederate South the world-famous surgeon at Jefferson in Philadelphia wrote a manual representing medical instructions for army surgeons that was quickly pirated by the South, but formally written by Julian Chisolm with both appearing in 1861. Chisolm’s Manual would continuously updated by knowledge acquired during the war and eventually reached the 4th edition by 1864 whereas Gross did not update his which would be replaced by the Army’s own Manual. CONCLUSIONS: Gross was perhaps the most prepared person in the U.S. at the outbreak of hostilities- he composed his Manual in just nine days and published in a fortnight from the time of its inception. J.B. Lippincott & Co from Philadelphia publishing. It was immediately pirated by a southern publisher in Virginia as it sold out quickly and a second edition appeared in 1862. Chisolm’s first edition was 447 pages with no surgical plates. The third edition from Columbia in 1864 was 104 pages longer now with 26 graphic surgical plates. One cannot help to point out just one of many peculiarities that pertain to both Civil War authors and surgeons- Sir William Osler married Gross’s son’s widowed wife Grace and they moved just down the street at Johns Hopkins to Chisolm who lived at 55 Franklin Street in Baltimore and must have met him there before his death as he was a well-known physician at the University of Maryland at the time. In fact it was Chisolm who got Osler to act as Chairman for the AMA during its meeting in 1894. Source of Funding: None