What do you think?
Rate this book
Bleeding Blue and Gray
A gritty, compelling story well told.-- Publishers Weekly "Great storytelling that both Civil War buffs and fans of medical history will surely relish."-- Kirkus This landmark history charts the practice and progress of American medicine during the Civil War and retells the story of the war through the care given the wounded.
- GenresHistory
320 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2015
3 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 6, 2018
Judging by the lack of reviews and fairly average three star ratings, I don't think I'm alone in finding this book fairly 'meh'. I was very interested in this book because I have a particular enjoyment for nursing and medical history during the Great War and had high expectations for this book, which definitely didn't quite live up to other medical history texts that I have encountered.
My biggest issue with this book is how it takes fairly common knowledge and expands on it, while breezing through more curious pieces swiftly, but maybe not efficiently. I feel like the nursing section could have been expanded up, increasing the importance of Nightingale and also Victorian woman values. However, I found the section describing nurses who encountered terrible illnesses of their own very interesting. Explaining the housing conditions, access to proper hygienic spaces and also the men that they encountered, their plight with illness made perfect sense. Also Catholic trained Nuns working as nurses was particular fascinating. But again, I wish these had been further in depth.
The explanation of achieving a medical education was interesting, something I had yet to encounter. It highlighted the changes in medical thought processes, from Ancient Greek methods to the (then) current bloodletting scenarios. Another aspect I found critically important that this book did manage was showing how much of medicine was unknown, such as body temperatures. Fevers were a generic catch all phrase, containing illnesses like malaria to cancer.
This book is important because of how it tried to justify how much medicine developed out of the war. I think it personally showed the importance of trained medical physicians in areas like amputation more, however, as well as the benefit of working medical groups available post Civil War. The Civil War foray into medicine was crucial for any medical discoveries made in the post war years, leading up the events like effective resistance to infection in the trenches during the Great War, as well as solutions to fighting diseases like cholera and malaria. While I don't believe I will ever suggest this book to anyone, I can say that this is a tremendously researched piece of work.
My biggest issue with this book is how it takes fairly common knowledge and expands on it, while breezing through more curious pieces swiftly, but maybe not efficiently. I feel like the nursing section could have been expanded up, increasing the importance of Nightingale and also Victorian woman values. However, I found the section describing nurses who encountered terrible illnesses of their own very interesting. Explaining the housing conditions, access to proper hygienic spaces and also the men that they encountered, their plight with illness made perfect sense. Also Catholic trained Nuns working as nurses was particular fascinating. But again, I wish these had been further in depth.
The explanation of achieving a medical education was interesting, something I had yet to encounter. It highlighted the changes in medical thought processes, from Ancient Greek methods to the (then) current bloodletting scenarios. Another aspect I found critically important that this book did manage was showing how much of medicine was unknown, such as body temperatures. Fevers were a generic catch all phrase, containing illnesses like malaria to cancer.
This book is important because of how it tried to justify how much medicine developed out of the war. I think it personally showed the importance of trained medical physicians in areas like amputation more, however, as well as the benefit of working medical groups available post Civil War. The Civil War foray into medicine was crucial for any medical discoveries made in the post war years, leading up the events like effective resistance to infection in the trenches during the Great War, as well as solutions to fighting diseases like cholera and malaria. While I don't believe I will ever suggest this book to anyone, I can say that this is a tremendously researched piece of work.
Displaying 1 of 1 review