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March/April - West Virginia State Medical Association

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<strong>West</strong> <strong>Virginia</strong> School of Osteopathic Medicine | NEWS<br />

Life and Limb exhibit to be featured at WVSOM library<br />

Wounded Civil War soldiers and<br />

their fight to cope with disabling<br />

battlefield injuries will be featured in an<br />

upcoming National Library of Medicine<br />

exhibit at the <strong>West</strong> <strong>Virginia</strong> School of<br />

Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM).<br />

“Life and Limb: The Toll of the Civil<br />

War” will explore the experiences<br />

of disabled Civil War veterans<br />

who were forced to sacrifice their<br />

limbs in order to save their lives.<br />

This is WVSOM’s third National<br />

Library of Medicine exhibit, which<br />

will be on display February 11<br />

through <strong>March</strong> 23 at the library<br />

on their Lewisburg campus.<br />

Mary Essig, WVSOM library<br />

director, said the exhibit focuses<br />

on the stories of disabled veterans<br />

rather than the surgeons, physicians<br />

and nurses whose stories are richly<br />

documented from that time.<br />

“This is more than just the general<br />

history of Civil War and Civil<br />

War medicine,” she said. “There’s<br />

a lot of interest in that history,<br />

but the contribution of disabled<br />

veterans often gets forgotten.”<br />

The Life and Limb exhibit will<br />

offer WVSOM students and local<br />

community members a glimpse into<br />

the medical field between 1861 and<br />

1865 — from common surgeries to<br />

medical instruments to the creation of<br />

an “Invalid Corps” in 1863. According<br />

to the NLM, about 60,000 surgeries<br />

during the war were amputations.<br />

Many times the surgeries were<br />

completed without anesthesia and in<br />

some cases left patients with painful<br />

sensations in the severed nerves.<br />

The practice of medicine has<br />

certainly evolved in the past<br />

150 years, but perhaps not as<br />

much as some might think.<br />

“For our medical students, this is<br />

part of the history of medicine and<br />

how things developed,” Essig said.<br />

“It’s interesting to see the surgical<br />

implements of the past and see how far<br />

we’ve come, but yet how similar some<br />

of them are to what we still use today.”<br />

Exhibit hours are 8 a.m. to 10<br />

p.m., Monday through Thursday; 8<br />

a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday; 12 to 6 p.m.,<br />

Saturday; and 2 to 10 p.m., Sunday.<br />

For more information about<br />

the exhibit, contact the library at<br />

304-647-6261. Information can<br />

also be found online at http://<br />

www.wvsom.edu/Academics/<br />

workshops-events/lifeandlimb.<br />

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46 <strong>West</strong> <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Medical</strong> Journal

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