concoctions. that went all the way back to the time of hip pock krit tees. the fact that there would soon be fundamental developments such as radiology, anti-sepsis, bacteriology. and scientific attitude, a willingness to question authority, a drive to modify therapeutic practices that these will become mainstays of late 19th century medicine. in the 1860s, medicine might have stood on the cusp of a great revolution which would be heralded with -- with shortly thereafter by the likes of men like, lister and pasteur, and bernard. for civil war era physicians and combatants, they would not

benefit one iota from this coming reformation. filth, diseases and ancient remedies prevailed. well let's talk about the civil war. so here is william goodell. here is william goodell. he is buried at south cemetery in randolph, vermont. let me tell you about him. 40 years old. private infantry. he is at vermont infantry. white oak swam. he gets knocked unconscious in 1862. this is from the examination, the words. on examination, no external lesion of the head or spine was discovered. he had no paralysis, anywhere, he could move his tongue perfectly in every way. but he could not speak and he was totally insensible to all sound. he was in a word, deaf and dumb. this is from his report. so what happened to mr. goodell. congestion of the brain. and he gets admitted to the hospital, later in philadelphia. treatment, blood taken by cups from the back of the neck and

ears. cupping meant they would put a cup on the back of your neck. they would put a fire to it. create a vacuum. blood would come out. create blisters. that was cupping. active bregation. cow mill was a mercury derivative. they are deadly poisons. the most common drugs we used to give to people. so much to so that mercury poisoning was so rampant in the military that they had to stop it and mercury poisoning is, as we all know, pretty severe. to the point that you would have gangrene of your entire face and your skin and mandible would sluff off. so blisters applied to the back of his neck. communication by a writing slate. etherization, confirm symptoms. somebody said, put the guy to sleep. talk to him as he is going to sleep. if he answers your questions we know he is not deaf and dumb.

they etherized him. he still couldn't talk. finally, electric shock therapy. not electric shock therapy like what you are thinking. they had the beginnings of electricity. they would touch you with the wires. you would get a shock. nothing helped. so, results. december 10, 1862, this is now about six months after the -- the shell, wounded him. left leg decreased motion. face drawn to the right. two days later, he has a seizure. by mid-december, he remains perfectly deaf and dumb intelligence, spirits, generally quite good. doesn't end there. outcome. a year later, he is disschargd with disability and pension. in 1876 his doctor in vermont says he is incapacitated. requiring the aide, to supply daily wants. a year later he is lame. in 1889, he dies. why is this important? it sort of shows you medical care as it existed at the time of the civil war. and more importantly -- that these are people that we won't get to read about.

he didn't die during the war. but yet he really did die from the war. so there are many statistics that aren't apparent. well, the civil war was a dirty war in a literal and figurative sense. this is an example of savage station, which is in virginia. these are all the wounded. this is what was going on. they would lie on the ground. they did not understand anti-sepsis, bacteriology, germs, bacteria didn't exist in their mind. it meant nothing. so we are going to look at this big bang theory. and there are three things that this big bang theory did. first was it provided physicians with clinical experience that they could never have gotten otherwise by just sitting around in an office in a little town in america. three years, tramping through the woods. camping, they learned about a lot of diseases. that's the first thing. clinical experience. second is organization. they learned about how to organize things. they learned to organize ambulances, hospitals. we will see that.

finally, they had this camaraderie. i need to be friends with this guy over there who is a doctor so we can get along and fix things. so there are all these different diseases. these diseases were seen by these men and they would nef have had a chance to see them. so this is this concept of clinical experience. this is a disease that doesn't exist anymore. hospital gangrene. finally, surgery. so here is a bullet wound. entry. exit. and here is the operation. that is the operation. that's how he was left. so you are looking at his femur, the condyles, the anterior fossa. the patella is gone. there is no skin graft, no nothing. this is what he was left with. so, a morning's work. this is what the civil war was about. amputations and more amputations. a surgeon's hand kit. for operations.

again, these were not sterilized. they could not be sterilized. why do i show the picture, and talk about specialization and family practice. internists learned all about diseases. surgeons, at the beginning of the war, everybody was surgeons. everybody was allowed to operate. that stopped by the middle of the war. and by, towards 1864, they said, you know this is really crazy. we need to have people who are specialized in surgery. this is the big bang theory for specialization in america. it started in the civil war. because jonathan letterman, a medical director of the civil war, said, hey, no. no. we are having three people operate. the rest of you guys are not operating. so those three people became very tuned in to surgery. they learned to operate. once the war was over the men, hundreds of them would go to towns and scatter throughout the country. that's how specialization surgery started. then there was this concept of

the -- of ambulances. we never had any ambulances during the war initially. in fact, when the war started, the idea was that the sick should take care of the sick. if i were wounded on the battlefield, it was very simple. i was sort of left on my own. maybe my friend who was also wounded would try to help me. but if i were sick, i was expendable. they didn't want to take a healthy soldier and expend them taking care of me. so this all changed during the course of the war. and, just some pictures of, of people learning how to run, how to take care of ambulances. doctors began to understand that on the battlefield, you have to take care of the wounded. you have to take care of the sick. they learned how to do this. they learned the concept of organization. boats, to take combatants who are wounded up and down the rivers. these all became floating

hospitals, something that was introduced during the war. and then, finally, the great hospitals of the civil war. by the time of the civil war, growing emphasis on maximizing the circulation of air, along with the desire for cleanliness, spaciousness and ventilation found life in the form of civil hospitals. that was the one william goodell went to. this is down in baltimore. pavilion plans called for multiple wards, ventilated by numerous windows and doors. it meant low sprawling hospitals. and in the best of circumstances there might have been a river nearby so that they would have breezes and fresh air going through. architects designed pavilion hospital complexes so accumulation of dirt was minimized. smooth surfaces, less right angles, all to lessen the presence of dirt. when you combine with hygienic

behaviors, such as chamber pots emptied on time, drainage ditches dug for human waste, it changed the entire concept of hygiene. although the civil war did not bring about great changes in therapeutics or diagnostics, the physical administrative structure of the american hospital was vastly changed during the course of the war. and the building of these hospitals. none of these pavilion hospitals exist any more today. there is no evidence of any of them. they are all gone. these had over 1,000 hospitals. and one had 3,000 beds, a 3,000 bed hospital. the hospitals were triumphs of sanitary reason. doctors learned to understand that things needed to be clean. with more than a million men treated as inpatients and overall mortality rate of 10%, the army's general hospitals came to be regarded as invaluable and necessary public institutions. no longer were hospitals sang tu wares, only for the destitute and the insane. for the first time, bankers and

policemen and shopkeepers and saloonkeepers, whoever it might be, they experienced the positive realities of institutional medical treatment. with massive wards maintained, getting well, within a hospital became part of the american experience. and just some pictures of the various different hospitals. this is hairwood. more pictures of hairwood and the patients inside. a recent military experience have done more for the cause of public hygiene in this country than any other agencies. this is john shaw billings. he designed the public library on 42nd street and became its president. public hygiene became very important during the course of the war. and these were members of the sanitary commission. i could spend the lecture talking about the sanitary commission, other than to tell it originated in new york city. it was a civilian relief agency. sort of look red cross and uso

and whatever it might be in today's word. they were all rolled into one. a quasi-governmental agency. there have been great books written about it. but these men came and took care of -- the soldiers. they themselves are not necessarily doctors. but they introduced this concept of cleanliness. and then, finally, the sanitary commission and i put this slide up because of the home lodge for invalid soldiers. they begin to understand that you need to take care of the veterans. the big bang theory for the veterans' administration. starting back in the civil war. well, s. weir mitchell. talking about his recollections of the civil war. 1905. the constant mingling of men of high medical culture with the less educated had high value. and the general influence of the war was this and other ways great service. in other words, the men who were very well-educated got to spread the word out to the men who were less educated. and this is just a picture of

surgeons, and the idea is the camaraderie that was existing during the course of the war. finally, i just want to say there were other big bang theories that happened during the war. one was nursing. i've don't have the time to talk about nursing. but obviously the beginning of nursing also came about during the civil war. so finally in summing up -- then i will be happy to take your questions. america's physicians made no astounding technological breakthroughs during the civil war. it's not as if a surgeon operated on somebody's brain during the course of the war and cured them. this did not happen. if you were shot in the abdomen, chest, the head, you were going to die. they did not have the capability of operating on you. if you got tie typhus and typhoid and color ra, you probably were going to die. no doctor introduced ingenious therapies to counteract disease. no surgeon claimed an enflaming victory. soldiers recovered from illness

and injury, more from serendipity, than possibility. the nation's physicians obtained a profound depth of clinical and organizational experience. this is what is most important. doctors learned about diseases and their clinical manifestations on a scale never before possible. they experience aid lifetime of practice and several years of camping and marching. the war created surgeons from physicians who previously had virtually no operating experience. america's healers acquired administrative skills. administrative skills not feasible in antebellum america. physicians organized ambulance corps, answered questions of medical manpower, design staff and managed vast pavilion hospitals. doctors came to understand that patient well-being depended on adequate cleanliness, controlled sanitation and natural ventilation. physicians grew to recognize mental health as a vital adjunct

to physical health. i wrote in seeking the cure that a physician's dedication to a military medical objective imposed much needed imposed much needed camaradeship and discipline. this is the big bang theory. i will leave us with the last slide. then, i will take your question. this is s. weir mitchell. he is older. he is examining a civil war veteran at the clinic of the orthopedic hospital. this is what he had to say. and he is talking about himself and fellow physicians. we have served faithfully as greater causes earth has known. we have built novel hospitals. organized ambulance service that had never before been seen. contributed numberless essays on diseases and wounds. what has been our reward? countless statues commemorate in

washington and elsewhere the popular heroes. statues of generals are in every town. some of them memorials of men who we were wiser to forget. there is a not a state or national monument to a physician. at getties burg, every battery site is marked with a recording tablet. every general that fell is remembered in bronze and marble. what of the physician that died? nothing. that is medicine during the civil war. i appreciate the fact that you came out on this cold night. i look forward to your questions. thank you. [ applause ] >> if you have questions, please come up here. >> they can't be too difficult that i can't answer. >> the civil war happens less than a decade after the krimean war. >> yes. >> and florence nighten gail by this team is writing quite a bit about the hygiene lessons learned in that war.

how much is that propagating into it? >> it had an impact on many individuals i did not get into. for instance, with the nurses, with dorthea dix, i did not mention her name. there is so much you can mention in a lecture. florence nightingale's book was throughout america. women knew about it. dorthea dix who started a nursing corps during the time of the civil war for the army, she read florence nightengale. so the effect was there. she was important. it probably grew more and more as nursing grew larger. sir? >> question, in the same vein. what, if any, influence did the teachings have on letterman and other members of the sanitary commission to your knowledge? >> that is an interesting. question. i don't have an answer. i am not sure that any of them knew about samuel weiss. it was later than that.

the type of research that he was doing, which was ongoing in the '60s, they did not know anything about. so it had really minimal impact, virtually none. >> hi. >> hello. >> to dr. mitchell's quote, wasn't there a statue of samuel gross who wrote the field manual created in washington? and wasn't he the fellow who -- at the philadelphia centennial in 1876, didn't he tell lister that there was no value to antisepsis and wasn't his statue taken out of washington and put back at his alma mater thomas jefferson? >> now, i will make a confession. i do not know this gentleman. he is not my father. he is not asking a staged question. that is like my favorite topic. samuel gross is my favorite individual in american medicine. the answer is very simple. there was not a statue of him. i don't know if it was in washington. his statue is by jefferson.

on the courtyard as you walk into the medical school. yes, he did tell lister that no american wanted to listen to what he had to say. that was -- lister came over in 1876 and made a very important tour of america. it was in new york city. and i'm writing about it currently. and gross, he did go to the, to the centennial celebration down in philadelphia. at the big banquet on the night that the thing was finished, friday night, lister was here, gross was here. gross was a very uppity individual, lister was a very important, more important individual than gross was. but gross was a very unassuming gentleman. and gross praised him left and right. and everybody in america who was sitting at the table knew that it was not true. because just a month before, gross had written an article about the history of medicine and surgery in america. and he wrote that no intelligent american would ever listen to

joseph lister. so the answer is everything that you said is absolutely true. it is a fascinating story with joseph lister and samuel gross and his tour of america. i thank you for bringing that up. sir? >> thank you for your presentation. >> you are welcome. >> i am an anesthesiologist. i appreciate your wonderful photographs or the types that you showed. there are statues of crawford long, who southerners believed discovered ether-anesthesia all over the south. not sure if they're coincidental with the civil war. certainly he is well recognized. my point is, america was known for yankee ingenuity, inventions discoveries in every field except medicine. when you compare what was known of scientific medicine in america in the 19th century and what was happening in europe, with great discoveries, foremost

medical schools, centers of learning in england and france and germany and austria, america was way behind. it wasn't until well into the 20th century that scientific medicine really acquired its reputation. >> yes. and that's an interesting phenomenon. it's been written about many times over and over again as to why that occurred. it is absolutely true what you just said, that science in america was underserved compared to how it was in europe. it's an interesting phenomenon. again, a subject that i'm interested in, that i am writing something about currently. it went on for many years. and america was a very raw country. and despite the fact that it's 1876 and 100 years later and we had the centennial celebration in washington, it was still a very raw and undeveloped country. and that's just how it was. now, as far as crawford long, who you mentioned, crawford long

probably discovered anesthesia before anybody else. his statues were all after the civil war. but yes, he is the south's argument against the north's -- pardon? >> [ inaudible ]. >> yes. so he was an important individual. yes, doctor. >> would you comment on what, if any, was the influence of the french, especially the napoleonic war medicine, on ambulance corps and others. a little bit surprising that we had nothing although it was well known in europe at that time. >> well, the flying ambulances that the french started in the 1850s and 1860s did have an impact on the civil war in the sense that we began to have ambulances and we began to understand that you need to take care of soldiers who were injured and wounded on the battlefield. so the impact was there. it's not as if we used the

specifics of their ambulances. the ideas were there. specifics were not. so the answer is yes, it did have an impact and would grow over the course of the 1870s and 1880s when the french became much more prominent with their flying ambulances. but yes, it was there during the civil war. >> as we talk of civil war medicine, we often talk of just the north. >> yes. >> what about the south? >> well, the problem with the south, at least for me, was that much of the southern medical records were destroyed in a fire. with herman marching through and everything. so they were all destroyed. there are many people who write about the south. i just don't in particular, but the south has a very rich tradition relative to civil war medicine. as rich as what the north had. they did not have the infrastructure. much of this big bang theory that i talked about happened more in the north than it did in the south, just because of logistics and the number of men,

et cetera, but the south did have a very rich tradition during the civil war. they actually had the largest civil war hospital during the war. larger than any of the northern hospitals. so, yes. it needs to be written about. it needs to be discussed, and should be presented. well, thank you very much, and i appreciate your coming. [ applause ] >> thank you for coming, and i encourage you to check our schedule for the remaining lectures in this series and for the entire series. thanks again. as commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the civil

war continues, join us every saturday at 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. and sundays at 11:00 a.m. for programs about civil war. for more information including our complete schedule go to c-span.org/history. and to keep up with us during the week or to send us your questions and comments, follow us on twitter. we're at twitter.com/cspanhistory. all weekend long american history tv is in oklahoma city, oklahoma, to explore its history. you're watching american history tv, 48 hours of people and events telling the american story. at julian p. cantor political archive at the university of oklahoma in norman. my name is terri jordan. i'm the archivist here at the archive. and welcome to our space. previously, the ads were all on

analog tape. those are stored here in this room. and you'll note it's a little chilly. we keep the temperature and humidity down for preservation of the analog materials. >> how far back does your collection date? >> we have audio material dating back to the 1930s for radio advertise sxmts to the 1950s for television advertisements. some of our earliest material are commercials from the eisenhower campaign.

ad agencies are going -- we're starting to see a lot more donations because a lot of them don't want to throw away a lifetime worth of analog tapes. so they send them to us. that's been a fantastic way we've gotten donations recently as well. >> what type of political advertisements do you have in this collection? >> just about every type. we have ads from positive imagery and negative imagery of candidates to ads discussing the issues at hand. issues that have changed over the course of many decades, but many relevant patterns still stay the same. negative advertising. concern with, quote unquote, flip-flopping positions.

establishing a candidate's values and so forth. >> what type of races? >> everything from local races all the way up to presidential. we do focus on north american, united states ads, but we do have some foreign spots as well. but the bulk of the 95,000-plus commercials in our collection are united states political commercials. this is our equipment storage room, and this is our refrigerator, where we keep our film canisters. i'll just pop that open very briefly so you can take a look inside. >> what type of commercials would be on these film? >> these are primarily our older presidential campaign commercials. a lot of this is the original material that started the archive when julian canter began obtaining it and archiving it in the late '50s. he'd been volunteering for the adlai stevenson campaign, and during that time he'd made a lot of political contacts as well as

contacts through his television work. and he realized that a lot of these old advertisements and reels were getting thrown out. so he convinced his contacts to give them to him and began the collection in the '50s. and when it was purchased by the university of oklahoma in 1985 it contained about 25,000 commercials, and it's grown today to over 95,000. >> you had mentioned negative campaigning. when did that become more precedent in these commercials? >> that has actually been the case in almost every campaign. some of the earliest material we have is negative campaigning. we've got ads from adlai stevenson against eisenhower. we have the famous daisy girl ad that was against goldwater. it's very easy in the visual medium of a short television ad to connect things with powerful imagery.

>> ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero. >> these are the stakes. to make a world in which all of god's children can live or to go into the dark. we must either love each other or we must die. >> vote for president johnson on november 3rd. >> you also see patterns of flip-flopping. we have several commercials from the famous john kerry windsurfing ad through to -- we have one called the carter cartoon that has a caricature of president carter flip-flopping. >> he promised to create more jobs, and now there are 8 million americans out of work. he promised to balance the budget. what he gave us was a $61 billion deficit. he promised not to raise taxes,