African Americans in Civil War Medicine

Margaret Humphreys, Duke University

Columbia University (New York, NY)

Wednesday, May 10, 2017 5:30 pm EDT

The Knowledge Center at the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library, Columbia University Medical Center
Hammer Building, 701 West 168th St. at Fort Washington Ave.
 
Many histories have been written about medical care during the Civil War, but the participation and contributions of African Americans as nurses, surgeons, and hospital workers has often been overlooked.The event is free and open to the public. Dr. Humphrey’s talk coincides with the traveling National Library of Medicine (NLM) exhibit Binding Wounds Pushing Boundaries: African Americans in Civil War Medicine located at the main entrance of the Knowledge Center. It runs until May 13, 2017.
 
Margaret Humphreys is the Josiah Charles Trent Professor in the History of Medicine at Duke University. She received her PhD in the History of Science (1983) and MD (1987) from Harvard University. She is the author of Yellow Fever and the South (Rutgers, 1992) and Malaria: Poverty, Race and Public Health in the United States (Johns Hopkins, 2001), Intensely Human: The Health of the Black Soldier in American Civil War (2008) and Marrow of Tragedy: The Health Crisis of the American Civil War (2013). She teaches the history of medicine, public health, global health, food, and biology to undergraduates at Duke University, and is editor emeritus of the Journal of the History of Medicine.