continued from page 4
Handles were often made of different materials
from the instruments - and where they joined could
harbor germs, which were unknown to doctors of
the time.
today. Contrary to what action-packed old Western
films taught us, most soldiers at frontier Army forts
like Fort Davis suffered and died not in battle with
Indians but from maladies like pneumonia, con-
sumption, venereal disease, bowel obstruction,
inflammation of the lungs and other respiratory
diseases, pericardites, dropsy, infection from injury,
gunshot wounds, rheumatism, scurvy, typhoid and
diarrhea.
Diarrhea or dysentery took the lives of many
Fort Davis soldiers in their 20s. They did not know
to wash their hands before meals or to boil water
before drinking from the creek. If they got an
“intestinal bug,” they just kept running to the privy.
They got dehydrated and sometimes died (no IVs
then). Army doctors at the fort blamed diarrhea on
improperly baked bread, hot weather or excessive
indulgence in alcohol after payday. Not knowing
what else to point the finger at, they blamed dis-
eases like pneumonia on miasmas or bad air that
emanated from decaying vegetable and plant mat-
ter. Finally, late in the 19th century European scien-
tists like Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch proved the
“germ theory,” and doctors began to unravel the
mysteries of germs and microorganisms that
caused disease.
Fort Davis records show that the U.S. Army kept
the death rate low by discharging soldiers who had
an injury or debilitating disease that prevented
them from performing their duties – after a reason-
able period of recuperation was allowed.
Sometimes two or three soldiers per month were
medically discharged. Typical were Pvt. Peter A.
Lee, age 21, medically discharged in March 1884
for chronic rheumatism, Pvt. David R. Dillon,
medically discharged in November 1884 for consti-
tutional syphilis and Pvt. James Kidd, injured in
1882 when the bullet from a fellow soldier’s Colt
revolver accidentally hit him in his private parts;
Kidd’s wounds failed to heal, bleeding every time
he rode his horse, so the Army medically dis-
charged him.
Anesthesia was available, as the use of chloro-
form and ether was first demonstrated in 1846. But
it was difficult to regulate the amount when
dripped onto a sponge or cone-shaped cloth over
the patient’s nose. Sometimes patients died from
overdose or the surgeon was overcome by the
vapors. One lesson learned from the Civil War was
that patients did not usually survive surgical proce-
dures because of the infections that followed. Army
doctors at Fort Davis rarely performed surgery.
From 1880 to1890, there are records of fewer than
10 surgeries: removing a rifle ball from a soldier’s
leg; two finger amputations as a result of baseball
injuries; fistula in ano surgery on three soldiers; ten-
don surgery on a soldier’s foot.
Fort Davis medical records contain some curi-
ous incidents as well. In a fight on New Year’s
Day of 1882, a fellow soldier bit off the ear of
Pvt. James Henry. Pvt. Patrick Burke, bugler, was
treated for chapped lips for five days in April
1885. One soldier who suffered from a headache
was Pvt. Eggnog Cloudy. Pvt. Joshua Stallcup in
1886 was bitten by a pet raccoon kept at a local
saloon.
The National Park Service at Fort Davis
National Historic Site has been restoring the 1876
post hospital. In the recently furnished post sur-
geon’s office, you can see the full-size skeleton used
as a consultation tool by army doctors. Interactive
displays include “Wheel of Misfortune” or the
“You Be the Doctor” exhibit of old medical instru-
ments. These exhibits are based on case studies of
actual Fort Davis people. One item alone that is
worth the visit is the tonsillotome – the thought of
having a doctor jam this nickel-plated instrument
with sharp prongs and retractable blade down
one’s throat to remove tonsils is terrifying!
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