TY  - JOUR
T1  - AMputation vs nonamputation
AU  - Rutkow IM
Y1  - 1999/11/01
N1  - 10.1001/archsurg.134.11.1284
JO  - Archives of Surgery
SP  - 1284
EP  - 1284
VL  - 134
IS  - 11
N2  - 
DESPITE THE FACT that approximately 60,000 amputations were performed, the great surgical controversy of the Civil War concerned amputation vs nonamputation. Conservative surgeons and their overtly concerned civilian supporters wished to save a wounded extremity at any price. The radical "cutters" believed only in prompt amputation. At the start of the hostilities, conservatism seemed to hold sway. As early as June 1861, the US Sanitary Commission, a civilian-organized soldiers' relief society, authorized the printing of an American edition of the British Surgeon-General George Guthrie's (1785-1856) Directions to Army Surgeons on the Field of Battle. From his experiences at the Crimean front, Guthrie expounded the conservative viewpoint that a "leg should be seldom amputated for a fracture from a musket ball."

SN  - 0004-0010
M3  - doi: 10.1001/archsurg.134.11.1284
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.134.11.1284
ER  -