March/April - West Virginia State Medical Association
March/April - West Virginia State Medical Association
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