Marrow of Tragedy: Intro - Ch. 3

I enjoyed reading this book. Humphreys takes an interesting approach to describe the history of medical care in the Civil War. She chose to include the effects that women had in medicine during that time. I think this is unique because this time period we typically only focus on the impact of the men in the war. Humphreys describes the role that women had in chapter 2. Before the war women typically only worked in hospitals and in health care in general as servants. There also very few female physicians. But once the war began, more and more women began to transition from a job title as "servant" to professional nurse. I did not realize how important women were during the war.  They were responsible for some of the organizations that provided relief for the injured soldiers. They also help implement hospitals. At this time, hospitals were a new idea, and it was difficult to get them up and running smoothly. Women were able to help because they had a better idea of the logistics behind taking care of someone. Humphrey also goes into detail about medicine and surgery tatics that were used during the war.