5fish
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I found this interesting article that combined Biological warfare, Botony and the rise of industrial drug complex all into one story about the quest for quinine to fight Malaria and other Southern fevers... The North and the South took different paths to try to acquire enough quinine for their armies... Who won the drug race?
Link to the story: https://www.sciencehistory.org/dist...th-doctors-quinine-and-the-american-civil-war
Snippets... Biological warfare?
In 1862, the second year of the American Civil War, Southerners took satisfaction in knowing that invading Union army troops would succumb to tropical diseases endemic to the South’s bayous, swamps, and coastal regions. Just wait until summer, Southern newspapers predicted.
One physician wrote, “The pestilential atmosphere of the country about Shiloh was producing an amount of sickness almost without parallel in the history of the war.” In May, Sherman mustered only half of his 10,000 troops because the other half were sick.
Mosquito nets, called bars, were not yet widely available, and soldiers exploded gunpowder cartridges in their tents to keep the pests away, unaware that they were the source of much of the illness gripping the encampments. (It would be another 20 years before doctors began to suspect mosquitoes were to blame for malaria and yellow fever.)
Physicians of the time did not connect mosquitoes to malaria, but they did know quinine was a sure way to ease its symptoms. The problem was getting and administering the drug, especially getting it in quantity.
Snippet... South path?
Confederate Surgeon General Samuel P. Moore, the man in charge of creating an entire medical infrastructure for the South, needed large quantities of quinine to relieve Southern soldiers of fevers, and he needed them fast. A 50-year-old veteran of the Mexican War, Moore knew the success of his army depended at least in part on a reliable supply of quinine. But where could he find it?
Moore’s solution was to search for quinine equivalents among the flora of Southern fields and forests. He issued a directive to Confederate physicians to gather specific plants and send them for processing. But what plants native to the South would make good medicines?
Before the end of 1863 Porcher published Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests, Medical, Economical, and Agricultural: Being Also a Medical Botany of the Confederate States; with Practical Information on the Useful Properties of the Trees, Plants, and Shrubs. He organized the book for field use despite its 600-page length and included Latin and common names for about 3,500 plants and trees.
Porcher believed his book provided a “repertory of scientific and popular knowledge as regards the medicinal, economical, and useful properties of the trees, plants, and shrubs found within the limits of the Confederate States.” His native plants would be as valuable as their more expensive foreign counterparts and would benefit the South’s doctors and farmers both during and after the war.
Snippet... North path?
Surgeon General Moore’s Northern counterpart, Union army Surgeon General William Hammond created the U.S. Army Laboratory to ensure the purity of drugs and to create standards for drugs purchased by medical purveyors (agents authorized to purchase raw materials for medicines) and distributed to the various theaters of war.
Powers and Weightman, one of only two pharmaceutical firms in the United States to produce quinine during the war, leased some of its space to Hammond’s Philadelphia laboratory.
Snippet...
The diseases Northern soldiers encountered in the South forced the North to industrialize its quinine production, which in turn required an emphasis on quality control and sophisticated channels of testing and distribution. The Civil War, although a time of incalculable destruction, provided the ingredients and conditions necessary to create the nation’s first example of modern large-scale drug manufacturing as well as the first government-run drug-testing laboratories
There is more to the story like how the south tried to smuggle quinine into the south... details about the North's laboratories...
Link to the story: https://www.sciencehistory.org/dist...th-doctors-quinine-and-the-american-civil-war
Snippets... Biological warfare?
In 1862, the second year of the American Civil War, Southerners took satisfaction in knowing that invading Union army troops would succumb to tropical diseases endemic to the South’s bayous, swamps, and coastal regions. Just wait until summer, Southern newspapers predicted.
One physician wrote, “The pestilential atmosphere of the country about Shiloh was producing an amount of sickness almost without parallel in the history of the war.” In May, Sherman mustered only half of his 10,000 troops because the other half were sick.
Mosquito nets, called bars, were not yet widely available, and soldiers exploded gunpowder cartridges in their tents to keep the pests away, unaware that they were the source of much of the illness gripping the encampments. (It would be another 20 years before doctors began to suspect mosquitoes were to blame for malaria and yellow fever.)
Physicians of the time did not connect mosquitoes to malaria, but they did know quinine was a sure way to ease its symptoms. The problem was getting and administering the drug, especially getting it in quantity.
Snippet... South path?
Confederate Surgeon General Samuel P. Moore, the man in charge of creating an entire medical infrastructure for the South, needed large quantities of quinine to relieve Southern soldiers of fevers, and he needed them fast. A 50-year-old veteran of the Mexican War, Moore knew the success of his army depended at least in part on a reliable supply of quinine. But where could he find it?
Moore’s solution was to search for quinine equivalents among the flora of Southern fields and forests. He issued a directive to Confederate physicians to gather specific plants and send them for processing. But what plants native to the South would make good medicines?
Before the end of 1863 Porcher published Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests, Medical, Economical, and Agricultural: Being Also a Medical Botany of the Confederate States; with Practical Information on the Useful Properties of the Trees, Plants, and Shrubs. He organized the book for field use despite its 600-page length and included Latin and common names for about 3,500 plants and trees.
Porcher believed his book provided a “repertory of scientific and popular knowledge as regards the medicinal, economical, and useful properties of the trees, plants, and shrubs found within the limits of the Confederate States.” His native plants would be as valuable as their more expensive foreign counterparts and would benefit the South’s doctors and farmers both during and after the war.
Snippet... North path?
Surgeon General Moore’s Northern counterpart, Union army Surgeon General William Hammond created the U.S. Army Laboratory to ensure the purity of drugs and to create standards for drugs purchased by medical purveyors (agents authorized to purchase raw materials for medicines) and distributed to the various theaters of war.
Powers and Weightman, one of only two pharmaceutical firms in the United States to produce quinine during the war, leased some of its space to Hammond’s Philadelphia laboratory.
Snippet...
The diseases Northern soldiers encountered in the South forced the North to industrialize its quinine production, which in turn required an emphasis on quality control and sophisticated channels of testing and distribution. The Civil War, although a time of incalculable destruction, provided the ingredients and conditions necessary to create the nation’s first example of modern large-scale drug manufacturing as well as the first government-run drug-testing laboratories
There is more to the story like how the south tried to smuggle quinine into the south... details about the North's laboratories...