STETHOSCOPES IN THE CIVIL WAR

Dr. Jonathan Letterman and his medical staff in Warrenton, Virginia January 10, 1862

There has been considerable debate about whether stethoscopes were used by civil war doctors. The evidence that civil war surgeons did not use stethoscopes is usually referenced to the fact that the Harvard Medical School catalogue did not list ownership of a stethoscope until after the civil war in 1869. However, medical students owned their own stethoscopes dating back to the 1840s.

Major Jonathan Letterman, M.D. (1824 – 1872) was an American surgeon credited as being the originator of the modern methods for medical organization in armies or battlefield. Dr. Letterman is known today as the "Father of Battlefield Medicine". His system of organization enabled thousands of wounded men to be recovered and treated during the civil war. Medical Recollections Of The Army Of The Potomac was written by Letterman in 1866. His book provides an account of his experiences serving in the Army of the Potomac, as well as a detailed listing of supplies for hospitals shown below.

Medical Recollections Of The Army Of The Potomac 1866 by Jonathan Letterman, M.D.

There is ample evidence in civil war army medical documents that physical auscultatory signs related to diseases of the heart and lungs could only have been heard with use of the stethoscope. In his highly regarded Manual of Military Surgery published in May of 1861, Samuel Gross said that "Organic cardiac disease could easily be detected with the stethoscope." Both union and confederate army medical department regulations and hospital reports show stethoscopes as part of the medical supplies for civil war hospitals. The 1863 Manual of Instructions for Military Surgeons by John Ordronaux, M.D. lists a stethoscope as part of Instruments for Special Diagnosis. A note in the section on Diseases of the Chest and Back states that "It is a good plan, in auscultating a party, to place him with his back against a wooden door or partition. The greater resonance of the pectoral sounds obtained by this process, will surprise those who have never before availed themselves of this simple acoustic medium." The manual also contains an illustrated Auscultatory Percussion Chart shown below.

Manual of Instructions for Military Surgeons 1863 by John Ordronaux, M.D.

Confederate Surgeon and Medical Purveyor report of hospital supplies. Note the lsiting of 3 stethoscopes under INSTRUMENTS in the report.

A handwritten inventory from Hospital Ward H at Conesus, NY, 1865 showing a stethoscope as part of the ward articles.

Page 25 from the Regulations of the Medical Department of the United States Army, 1861 that lists stethoscopes as part of the INSTRUMENTS for a civil war army hospital.

All of the above information confirms that stethoscopes were used by the union and confederate army surgeons during the civil war.