Kentucky Civil War recruits: a medical profile.

The Civil War remains the most thoroughly explored field for research among American historians. Battles are fought and refought, strategies analysed in the light of modem mijitary thought, and seemingly every minute aspect of the Brothers' War is probed, then probed again. Yet with the exception of Bell I. Wiley,' George W. Adams,2 Horace H. Cunningham,3 and a few others,4 historians have devoted surprisingly little attention to the medical side of the conflict. Whereas most previous studies focus on medical conditions in camp or at the front, little is known of the medical history of the civilian soldier who fought the fight. This article is a medical analysis of men enrolled in the Civil War drafts from one state, Kentucky. Fortunately, eight Kentucky doctors left detailed reports of the induction physicals which they conducted in the years 1863-1865. Not only do these afford invaluable insights into the health of the Union Army's rank and file, but the reports provide a barometer of the state of American medicine at mid-nineteenth century. Medical examiners in Kentucky, like those throughout the other Union states, were overworked, underpaid, and subjected to harassment.5 One veteran Kentucky military doctor, E. P. Buckner, considered "the examination ofmen for military service . . . the most responsible, laborious, trying, sometimes perplexing, and often most thankless, work that a surgeon is ever called upon to perform."6 Buckner joined seven other