The Medical History Interest Group invites you to attend “Death and Diversity in Civil War Medicine” presented by Margaret Humphreys, M.D./, Ph.D., the Josiah Charles Trent Professor in the History of Medicine at Duke University.

During the American Civil War deaths from disease did not occur at the same rates across national and racial groups. Confederates suffered from 167 disease deaths/thousand men; disease mortality among black Union troops was 143 per 1,000; white Union troops, on the other hand, reported only 43 disease deaths per 1,000 men. This talk explores the ways in which social determinants of health, particularly nutritious food and nursing care, explain much of this differential mortality.

Margaret Humphreys is the Josiah Charles Trent Professor in the History of Medicine at Duke University. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Science (1983) and M.D. (1987) from Harvard University. She is the author of Yellow Fever and the South (Rutgers, 1992); Malaria: Poverty, Race and Public Health in the United States (Johns Hopkins, 2001); Intensely Human: The Health of the Black Soldier in American Civil War (2008); and Marrow of Tragedy: The Health Crisis of the American Civil War (2013). She teaches the history of medicine, public health, global health, food, and biology to undergraduates at Duke University, and is editor emeritus of the Journal of the History of Medicine.

This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided.

The lecture also serves as the opening reception for a Civil War medicine exhibit at Laupus Library and will feature a pop-up display from the Country Doctor Museum.  The reception immediately follows the lecture and lasts until 7pm.

Lectures may be video recorded.

For directions and parking information, visit: http://www.ecu.edu/cs-dhs/laupuslibrary/about/Maps.cfm  

For the presentation schedule, visit: http://www.ecu.edu/cs-dhs/laupuslibrary/HOM/index.cfm  

This event is a Wellness Passport event.