Journée de l'hôpital de guerre civile

Civil War Hospital Day

Mütter Museum, College of Physicians of Philadelphia


September 22, 2012
Time: 10:00am-4:00pm

Location: College of Physicians of Philadelphia
19 South 22nd Street Philadelphia, PA 19103

During the Civil War (1861-1865), Philadelphia became the second largest hospital city (after Washington, DC) in the North. Ambulances and carts transferred wounded soldiers from arriving trains and ships to hospitals in and around the city. Blue uniforms were seen on every street: many military encampments surrounded Philadelphia. Troops paraded through streets on their way to war.

The College of Physicians of Philadelphia will evoke the atmosphere of medical wartime Philadelphia during the war years on Hospital Day. At the College, museum visitors will find a garrison of soldiers from the 3rd Regiment, United States Colored Troops. The presence of these soldiers highlights their history and connection to Camp William Penn, the first and largest training center for United States Colored Troops during the war, located just north of Philadelphia. Hospital Day will highlight the extraordinary contribution and experience of black soldiers during the war by focusing on their health and mortality. Several medical re-enactors, both men and women, will present displays about the wounds and diseases afflicting all soldiers, and their treatment. The Medicinal Plant Garden at the College will be set up as a temporary hospital.

Visit with the soldiers and the nurses and physicians who looked after them. Learn about the medicines used and techniques of surgery for battle wounds from re-enactors and the College’s Karabots Junior Fellows. Discover what hospitals were like. Support the troops! Find out if you have what it takes to be a Civil War soldier-or a doctor!

This educational event will serve as a precursor to a new Mütter Museum exhibit about the medical dimension of the Civil War, scheduled to open in 2013, Broken Bodies Suffering Spirits: Injury, Death, and Healing in Civil War Philadelphia.

Event free with Museum admission. Sponsored by the Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.