Dr. Mary Walker Wednesday #4

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This is the fourth in my Dr. Mary Walker Wednesdays series. Each week I’ll post the first sentence of a new chapter, along with an image (or two) that relates to material in the chapter. This week features Dr. Walker’s medical work in the field, caring for sick and wounded soldiers. Since this first sentence is short, I’ve included a couple extra.

Chapter Four: Field Surgeon

Dr. Mary Walker still could not secure a commission.

[In November 1862, she decided General Ambrose Burnside’s sick and wounded men at Warrenton, Virginia, needed help, so she went.]

Carrying with her a blank book for keeping track of the names of patients, Dr. Walker found some men on the floor of an old house, many suffering the effects of typhoid.

(General Burnside and staff at Warrenton, 1862)

[In December] Dr. Mary Walker volunteered at Lacy House in Falmouth, a behind-the-lines station where soldiers received treatment before being sent on to Washington.

(Smithsonian Institution)

 

Dr. Mary Walker Wednesday #3 (plus a little bonus)

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This is the third in my Dr. Mary Walker Wednesdays series. Each week I’ll post the first sentence of a new chapter, along with an image (or two) that relates to material in the chapter. This week features Walker’s medical work in the nation’s capital. And since we’re all thinking a lot about containing the spread of disease, I’ve added some bonus content from the book that explains how Americans dealt with this during the Civil War.

Chapter Three: Volunteer Surgeon

Dismissed by the secretary of war, Dr. Mary Walker searched Washington, DC, for a position at one of the new military hospitals.

(both images from the Smithsonian Institution)

Dr. Walker volunteered her services at the Indiana Hospital, situated inside the US Patent Office Building. One of her primary responsibilities was to perform pre-admittance examinations of patients to make sure they did not have smallpox. “Patients were daily brought in ambulances to the west sidewalk of the Patent Office Building,” she later wrote. Dr. Green, the physician in charge, would send for her “to come down and examine the cases so that no cases of possible smallpox might be taken up there” to the hospital ward.

A viral infection, smallpox spread through face-to-face contact via coughing and sneezing. Fever and body aches were followed by a red rash in the mouth and on the tongue, culminating in a pustule rash on the rest of the body. Three out of every ten people who caught it usually died. A successful vaccination had been developed, but it was not widely used in the early 1800s. During the Civil War, desperate soldiers fashioned their own vaccine, taking pus from an afflicted compatriot and scratching it into their skin. Their limited knowledge made this a high-risk proposition.

Doctors like Mary Walker managed to contain smallpox during the war. Pure, unadulterated vaccines reached enough soldiers to prevent an epidemic, but not enough to eradicate the disease. Quarantine, the primary method Walker relied on, also helped to stem the contagion.

Next week’s entry will provide a glimpse of some of Mary Walker’s other wartime activities.

Stay safe and stay healthy.

 

Dr. Mary Walker Wednesday #2 (No Fooling)

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This is the second in my Dr. Mary Walker Wednesdays series. Each week I’ll post the first sentence of a new chapter, along with an image that relates to material in the chapter. This week features the man who served as President Lincoln’s first Secretary of War.

Chapter Two: Commission Seeker

Dr. Mary Walker met with sixty-two-year-old Simon Cameron, a tall, clean-shaven man with an abundance of white hair.

(Library of Congress)

 

Dr. Mary Walker Wednesdays

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Getting ready to launch a new book can be a bit nerve-racking, even in the best of times. I don’t think it’s too dramatic to point out that these are not the best of times. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy, and I am very grateful to all the health care professionals, grocery store workers, public safety officials, and anyone else involved in pulling us through this medical crisis.

Today is National Medal of Honor Day.

Image result for national medal of honor

Only one American woman, Dr. Mary Walker, the subject of my forthcoming book, has ever received this commendation. It was awarded in 1865 in recognition of the service she rendered in the Civil War. Each Wednesday in these weeks leading up to the book’s publication, I’ll post the first sentence from a chapter along with an image that reflects something that happens in the chapter. Hopefully, these snippets will intrigue you enough to want to read the book.

Chapter One: Getting to Washington

In the early fall of 1861, Dr. Mary Walker, a twenty-nine-year-old dedicated reformer and passionate supporter of the Union, went to Washington, DC.

(Washington, D.C. train station image from Washington Historical Society)

 

Scenes from Last Century’s Pandemic

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In March 1918, Ethel Thomas of Potosi, Wisconsin, turned twenty-two. A college graduate, she worked as a high school teacher in nearby Lancaster.

Like millions of people worldwide, her life had been upended by the Great War that started in Europe in 1914, which the United States joined in 1917. Ethel’s future husband, Elmer Herold, joined the army, and was training with tank operators in preparation for deployment to the western front. During March 1918, soldiers in the United States began contracting influenza. Close quarters in training camps as well as subsequent troop movements helped spread the sickness.

 

 

Image result for american soldiers ww1

Although the spring outbreak was mild, causing few deaths, it had two unusual characteristics: the presence of bloody and fluid-filled lungs and the high number of otherwise healthy people in their twenties afflicted.

Elmer Herold contracted influenza at Camp Colt in September. It took a few days for the first cases to be diagnosed as flu, and by then it had already begun its astonishing spread through the military installation. Over two and a half weeks, the camp hospital treated 321 influenza cases and 106 of pneumonia. One hundred and fifty men died.

Elmer Herold sent a message to Ethel Thomas that he was getting over the flu, attributing his survival to “spirits of fermentis”–whiskey. No medicines existed at the time that could effectively counter the virus’s swift devastation. Elmer recovered at the end of September, even as another vicious wave hit. Boarding the troopship Leviathan, headed to Europe, he fainted and spent the duration of the ship quarantined in the ship’s infirmary. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, more on board got sick. Elmer survived.

In Lancaster, Wisconsin, Ethel Thomas began the school year as usual in early September, despite news that civilians had started dying of the flu in Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington, D.C. About midway through September, one of the first influenza-related deaths occurred in Lancaster. By October, it was clear that the sickness had infiltrated Wisconsin. When Dr. C. A. Harper, the state health officer, issued an advisory calling for the closing of all schools, churches, and theaters, the town of Lancaster obeyed. Ethel went home to Potosi for a short vacation to wait out the influenza cycle.

If you would like to know what happened to Ethel and Elmer, read more about them here:

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