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Chimborazo: The Confederacy's Largest Hospital. By Carol C. Green. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004. Pp. xii, 200. $29.95, ISBN 1-57233-316-2.)
One of the principal contributions of the Civil War to medicine was its impact on the evolution of the hospital. Previous military and public experience with the hospital had been largely unsatisfactory. But mounting numbers of sick and wounded forced both sides early on to build large fixed hospitals. The success of these facilities in saving lives and restoring health helped change attitudes and promote hospital development.
The largest and best-known Civil War hospital was the Confederacy's Chimborazo. Located in Richmond, Chimborazo opened in October 1861. Patients were housed in revolutionary pavilion-style buildings-America's first. Tents for the convalescent and slightly wounded raised capacity to eight thousand. James B. McCaw, Chimborazo's talented...