It was interesting, a few weeks ago, reading Louisa May Alcott's first book, entitled Hospital Sketches, about the assignment she sought [as in, asked for -- volunteered for] as a combat nurse in the Civil War. The work took her to Washington, D.C., where she bandaged and cared for the wounded, and became ill there herself, with a disease whose treatment, years later, many think brought about her early death. The book was short and and easy reading, written in a mid-19th century style that is not popular today, but it was easy to understand both her motivations for being there; as well as her observations about the wounded who she treated. It's interesting how some things never change: the acts of bravery, brothery love and kindness, the heartbreak of not being able to say goodbye to your comrades who die; the survivors' guilt, and so forth. Potent stuff, then as now. In Balad, at Landstuhl, Walter Reed, Bethesda, the Mologne House, and VA hospitals around the country, these same scenes are playing out, many years later. And doctors and nurses are no doubt experiencing a fair amount of combat trauma of their own.
(In an aside, too, we know that combat trauma has existed as long as there's been combat. A study a few years ago even went back to original medical records from the Civil War era, to prove that combat trauma existed then, though called by other names, making that study a first of its kind. The term "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" has only been around since the 1980s. The underlying concept, however, is as old as war itself.)
In Alcott's Hospital Sketches, however, the part that stood out the most to me was an item she wrote about a young veteran, clearly suffering from combat trauma. We'll include that towards the end, here. First, though, a general observation about her first time seeing the ward of injured veterans:
"There they were! "Our brave boys," as the papers justly called them, for cowards could hardly have been so riddled with shot and shell, so torn and shattered, nor have borne suffering for which we have no name, with an uncomplaining fortitude, which made one glad to cherish each as a brother. In they came, some on stretchers, some in men's arms, some feebly staggering along propped on rude crutches, and one lay stark and still with covered face, as a comrade gave his name to be recorded before they carried him away to the dead house. All was hurry and confusion; the hall was full of these wrecks of humanity, for the most exhausted could not reach a bed till duly ticketed and registered; the walls were lined with rows of such as could sit, the floor covered with the more disabled, the steps and doorways filled with helpers and lookers-on; the sound of many feet and voices made that unusually quiet hour as noisy as noon; and, in the midst of it all, the matron's motherly face brought more comfort to many a poor soul, than the cordial draughts she administered, or the cheery words that welcomed all, making of the hospital a home."
"The sight of several stretchers, each with its legless, armless, or desperately wounded occupant, entering my ward, admonished me that I was there to work, not to wonder or weep; so I corked up my feelings, and returned to the path of duty, which was rather "a hard road to travel" just then."
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Here's the item about the young boy suffering from combat trauma:
"The night whose events I have a fancy to record, opened with a comedy, and closed with a great tragedy; for a virtuous and useful life untimely ended is always tragical to those who see not as God sees. My [nursing] headquarters were beside the bed of a New Jersey boy, crazed by the horrors of that fateful Saturday [in a recent battle]. A slight wound in his knee brought him there; but his mind had suffered more than his body; some string of that delicate machine was over strained, and, for days, he had been reliving in imagination, the scenes he could not forget, till his distress broke out in incoherent ravings, pitiful to hear. As I sat by him, endeavoring to soothe his poor distracted brain by the constant touch of wet hands over his hot forehead, he lay cheering his comrades on, hurrying them back, then counting them as they fell around him, often clutching my arm, to drag me from the vicinity of a bursting shell, or covering up his head to screen himself from a shower of shot; his face brilliant with fever; his eyes restless; his head never still; every muscle strained and rigid; while an incessant stream of definite shouts, whispered warnings, and broken laments, poured from his lips with that forceful bewilderment which makes such wanderings so hard to overhear.
And another:
"...when the echo of a sob caused us to glance among the eds. It came from one in the corner -- such a little bed! -- and such a tearful little face looked up at us, as we stopped beside it! The twelve year old drummer boy was not singing now, but sobbing, with a manly effort all the while to stifle the distressed sounds that would break out.
"What is it, Teddy?" I asked, as he rubbed the tears away, and checked himself in the middle of a great sob to answer plaintively: "I've got a chill, ma'am, but I ain't cryin' for that, 'cause I'm used to it. I dreamed Kit was here, and when I waked up he wasn't, and I couldn't help it, then."
The boy [had come in] with the rest, and the man who was taken dead from the ambulance was the Kit he mourned. Well he might; for, when the wounded were brought from Fredericksburg, the child lay in one of the camps thereabout, and this good friend, though sorely hurt himself, would not leave him to the exposure and neglect of such a time and place; but, wrapping him in his own blanket, carried him in his arms to the transport, tended him during the passage, and only yielded up his charge when Death met him at the door of the hospital which promised care and comfort for the boy. For ten days, Teddy had shivered or burned with fever and ague [chills], pining the while for Kit, and refusing to be comforted, because he had not been able to thank him for the generous protection which, perhaps, had cost the giver's life. The vivid dream had wrung the childish heart with a fresh pang, and when I tried the solace fitted for his years, the remorseful fear that haunted him found vent in a fresh burst of tears, as he looked at the wasted hands I was endeavoring to warm:
"Oh! If I'd only been as thin when Kit carried me as I am now, maybe he wouldn't have died; but I was heavy, he was hurt worser than we knew, and so it killed him; and I didn't see him, to say good bye."
This thought had troubled him in secret; and my assurances that his friend would probably have died in any event, hardly assuaged the bitterness of his regretful grief."
{Editor's Note: it would be interesting to see if where she served was actually Mologne House. She describes it as being unbelievably dreary, and the former site of a hotel, and somehow connected to, or on the grounds of, the main military hospital complex in Washington, D.C. Hmmmn. Trivial pursuit, but interesting nonetheless. Okay, just to me :-)]
