ALGENEVA-L Archives

From: <>
Subject: Diseases dysentery and diarrhea
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 12:03:11 EDT

Civil War conditions created a perfect environment for to thrive. Men lived
crowded together; ate poor diets of fried meat, bread, and coffee; used the
same pan to cook their meal that they used to wash up; and went to the
latrine upstream from their camp.
Bowel disorders were the most prevalent illnesses on both sides of the Civil
War and they killed more men than battle. Dysentery and diarrhea, called
"quickstep" by soldiers, and "alvine flux" by the doctors, with dysentery
being distinguished by blood in the stool. Doctors knew neither how soldiers
contracted the condition nor how the diseases should be treated.

The number of soldiers who died from loose bowels is staggering. According to
Union records of 1,739,135 cases, 57,265 Yankee soldiers died of dysentery or
diarrhea, compared with 44,238 men dying in battle. Sometimes regiments had
three-quarters of their men stricken at one time. Usually there was one sick
soldier for every four well ones except in July and August, when more
suffered.

The Confederate Army of the Potomac, with some 50,000 men, reported 36,572
cases of bowel disorders in the first nine months of the war. At Chimborazo
Hospital in Richmond, one out of every 10 of the diarrhea and dysentery
patients died. Andersonville Prison in Georgia sometimes had 130 men die
daily from the disorders.

Treatments to open or close the bowels varied from home remedies of tea made
from dogwood bark to outrageous prescriptions. One pamphlet advised, "Let
your beard grow so as to protect the throat and lungs." Many doctors treated
dysentery with opium, and diarrhea with "blue mass", which was a mixture of
chalk and mercury. Other treatments included: strychnine, castor oil,
laudanum, camphor, turpentine, calomel, lead acetate, silver nitrate,
quinine, whiskey, ipecac, and even cauterization of the anal opening.

Excerpt from a handbook prepared for Union surgeons by the U.S. Sanitary
Commission:

"Of the prevention of Dysentery in camps, This subject may be considered,
1, in relation to the means to be employed for preventing the occurrence of
the disease; and
2, in relation to those which are adapted to lessen its malignity, and oppose
its extension, where it has already broken out. The ample instructions
furnished by the publications of this Commission in regard to the sanitary
regulations of camps and hospitals, render it unnecessary to lengthen the
present paper by any details upon either branch of the subject. It will be
sufficient to remark that dysentery is most efficiently prevented by dryness
and purity of the air; the absence of malarious and putrescent effluvia; warm
clothing; the avoidance of the hot mid-day sun, and of chill by night air, or
sleeping on the damp ground; by active exercise, to promote warmth, rather
than by trusting to artificial heat, and therefore by games and sports, as
well as by frequent drill; by camp fires, to dry the clothing in damp
weather, and by stoves, to dry the tents, rather than to heat them. In
summer, the men should be obliged to bathe frequently, and at all times to
observe the most perfect personal cleanliness."

Margie

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