When the war broke out, each state began forming volunteer regiments. Most of the New York Hospital doctors who served in the war began their service as volunteer surgeons in the regiments from New York State. Often doctors who were recruited for these regiments were small town physicians who had no training in military medicine and were ill prepared to treat wounded soldiers or perform amputations. Surgeons had to pass an exam and be approved by the war department. Their first task was to conduct the exams for the enlisted men and officers.

Ellen R. Cohn, Editor of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin, Yale University

will present the spring Heberden Society Lecture on Tuesday, May 14, 2013, at 4:30 p.m.
This will be the final Heberden Society lecture of the 2012-13 academic year, and promises to be a fascinating talk.


Benjamin Franklin's Contributions to Medicine

Valentine Mott was a renowned surgeon at New York Hospital from 1817 to 1837. After 1837 he was a consulting surgeon. He was born in 1785 in Glen Cove, Long Island. His father, Henry, was also a physician.

New York hospital had four doctors who served with the U. S. Sanitary Commission, a civilian organization that was concerned with the health of the soldiers. The volunteers worked as medical inspectors visiting the camps and hospitals, operated soldiers' homes, and furnished medical supplies, food, clothing, and nursing care for soldiers in the camps and hospitals. The leaders of the U.S. Sanitary Commission were instrumental in lobbying the government for the need to reform the U.S.

Four doctors from New York Hospital were members of the U.S. Sanitary Commission: William Van Buren, Cornelius Agnew, James McLane, and A. Brayton Ball. Valentine Mott was a consultant for the war department.

Approximately 750,000 Americans whether Union or Confederate died in the Civil War. About 250,000 died of battle wounds. About 500,000 died of infectious diseases such as dysentery/intestinal diseases, malaria, continual fevers, measles, mumps, yellow fever, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, venereal diseases, and cholera. These staggering figures are more than the combined statistics of all major wars that Americans participated in through the Korean War.

David B. Levine, M.D.

Emeritus Professor, Clinical Orthopaedic Surgery

Weill Cornell Medical College

Director, Alumni Association and Archives

Hospital for Special Surgery

will present the winter 2013 Heberden Society lecture.

<

p>
The Civil War and its Casualties


Wednesday, January 23, 2013. 4:30 p.m.

Weill Cornell Medical College, 1300 York Avenue

Uris Faculty Room (A-126)

<

Two exhibits on the Civil War will be on displayed in the Medical College Library until the end of January. The first exhibit is an traveling display called Life and Limb: the Toll of the American Civil War. This exhibition was developed and produced by the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.

Happy Holidays from the staff of the Medical Center Archives. We will be closed on December 24-26, and December 31-January 1. Enjoy the scene of the Cornell University-New York Hospital School of Nursing's Candlelight Ceremony, ca. 1940s.

Enjoy this image of the New York Hospital Training School for Nurses Class of 1924 Thanksgiving Dance, held on November 28, 1922.