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Some Of The Drug Conditions During The War Between The States, 1861-5.

*A Paper read before a meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Association
held in Baltimore, Maryland, in August, 1898,

*By Joseph Jacobs, Pharmacist, Atlanta, Georgia.

In the interior districts and small villages the country doctors returned to
the first principles and to the use of the plants of the fields and forests;
and these agencies were about all they had to rely on, outside of whiskey
and a little quinine, the latter frequently at $100 an ounce.

Interviewing one of our old Confederate surgeons, he said:

"During the early part of the war, I was placed in charge of a railroad
hospital in a small town where it was difficult to obtain medicine at almost
any cost, and as I had my little hospital crowded nearly all the time, both
with employes of the road and wounded and sick soldiers, afflicted with
various diseases and all kinds of wounds and injuries, and being also
engaged in general practice, it naturally followed that my mind was severely
taxed in order to supply the remedies and substitutes to meet the demands of
such varied practice. I perused my dispensary and called into requisition an
old botanic practice which had been handed down as a relic of the past, but
from which I confess to have received valuable aid and very many useful
hints in regard to the medical virtues of our native plants. I give you the
following facts from a record I kept of the patients treated, and the
remedies I used, and the principal substances I resorted to:

"Of that large class of medicines, so useful in surgery and so much in
demand in war times, called antiseptics, most of them, I may say, have been
discovered and appropriated to surgical use since our war. In fact, I had
but little else at my command except the cold-water dressing for wounds.


From experiment I learned to improve on the plain old method, as I think, by
employing a decoction of red-oak bark added to the water, which acted as a
disinfectant, and by its stimulating and astringent properties promoted the
healing process. I also used a weak solution of bicarbonate of soda, which I
found beneficial in the suppurative stages. When emollients were indicated,
I used slippery elm and wahoo root bark, and solution of common salt often
helped. In case of great pain I employed poppy heads, nightshade and
stramonium.

"I had a number of cases of intermittent fever. I would give strong bonesettea,
warm, until free vomiting was produced, and as a substitute for quinine
I used, during the intermission, butterfly root or pleurisy root tea, which
would nearly always shorten the febrile stage.

"Romittent or bilious fevers were treated much the same way, except that I
invariably gave good doses of mandrake tea in the febrile stage. Virginia
snake-root, yellow root, or Sampson's snake-root acted nearly as well, but I
preferred the other. If I could have obtained blue mass or calomel I would
have begun treatment with that, but none were to be had.

"Mayapple root or peach-tree leaves made into a strong tea and drank warm
would act on the bowels as certainly as senna; but with children where too
much tea is not desirable, I often gave beeps feet oil, hog's feet oil, or
even lard heated with syrup."

In cases of pneumonia, pleurisy, catarrhal fevers, etc., I made local
applications of mustard seed or leaves, stramonium leaves, hickory leaves,
pepper, etc., warm, and gave alternately butterfly-root and sanguinaria,
and continued to slightly nauseating, from day to day (no need of anything
else). The two last-named remedies took the place of Dover's powder, quinine
and all other diaphoretics, febrifuges end arterial sedatives.

"Phytalacca or poke was another favorite remedy the tincture when alcohol or
whisky could be obtained; otherwise, tea of roots or berries. I used it in
all cases of chronic rheumatism or neuralgia, enlarged glands, scrofula,
syphilis, and all cases requiring alteratives, often combined with American
sarsaparilla root, sassafras, alder and prickly ash.

"Female complaints gave me some trouble, but I soon learned the use of the
black haw, squaw-weed, partridge berry, etc. I had been taught in the use of
old text-books that opiates in large doses would control some cases of
threatened abortion, when the patient had not lost too much from hemorrhage.

I found that the black haw root tea would absolutely stop this tendency, not
only in cases where there was but little hemorrhage, but where large
quantities had passed, and would relieve the most severe cases ofdysmenorrhia,
especially when combined with squaw-weed, partridge berry orred shank.

"In stomach and bowel diseases I found but little difficulty in obtaining
plenty of substitutes for opiates, astringents and the like; in fact, I
believe that an all wise Providence has especially provided the best
antidotes in creation on the hills and dales, and by the vales and streams
of our own Southland. In ordinary loose-ness of the bowels or diarria, I
gave an infusion of raspberry leaves or whortleberry leaves (both of which
act finely on the kidneys and bladder). Where there was nausea or sick
stomach, a handful of peach leaves steeped in water and drank will settle
it, or what is perhaps better, the kernel of two or three seeds cracked and
cold water drank off of them. If stronger astringent is necessary, the inner
bark of red oak, blackberry or dewberry root tea, or red shank root, are
sure remedies."

Agrimony tea, and, as a last resort, the nut-gall or ink-ball made into
what, from its color, I called black wash (made by squeezing the juice out
and adding a little copperas). This black wash is not only a splendid ink,
but is a destroyer of syphilitic sores, warts, corns, ringworm, and old
ulcers and excrescences of nearly every kind, much superior to lime water
and calomel. Weakened properly, it is good in obstinate bowel diseases, and
can be used as an injection in gonorrhea, gleet, etc. Silk weed root put in
whiskey and drank, giving at the same time pills of rosin from the pinetree,
with very small pieces of blue vitrol will cure obstinate cases of gonorrhea,
and is a substitute for copaiba, cubebs, etc."

I raised lobelia from the seed, and found it to be a reliable emetic,
useful in cough medicines, croup and asthma. I have relieved asthma with
lobelia, and by smoking stramonium leaves. We, of course, used turpentine as
an adjunct in all cases where indicated, which is the case in very many
diseases, and in many a positive curative agent."Onions and garlic were used
as poultices in nearly all glandularenlargements, as are also poke-root, celery,
pepper, parsley, sage, thyme,rue and other garden products. Many of the
latter were used for the diseases of women and children."

White sumac, red elm, prickly ash, and poke, will in connection with my
black wash cure recent cases of syphilis. It will also cure many cases of
chronic rheumatism. Peach-tree leaves and Sampson's snake-root will cure
most cases of incipient dyspepsia. Gargle made of sage and honey will cure
most cases of sore throat, tonsilitis, etc."

For infants, calamus, catnip and soot teas are better than soothing syrups with opiates."

Source: Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. XXXIII. Richmond,Va., January-December. 1905

*This Page last updated 11/17/02

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