Comprising approximately 400 plates of mounted albumen photographic prints with accompanying case histories, Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens contains extensive visual documentation of patients who suffered traumatic wounds during and shortly after the Civil War. The majority of the subjects were soldiers (both Union and Confederate), though the later volumes in the series, compiled and published after the war, include civilian cases that were considered relevant additions to the collection. The work contains both portraiture and specimen photography, as well as a small number of photographically-reproduced drawings and paintings. The majority of specimens illustrate fractures or necrotic bone degeneration arising from shrapnel or gunshot wounds.

Edition Notes

Spine title on several volumes: Photographic series, U.S. Army Medical Museum.

Complete statement of responsibility from t.p. reads: "prepared by direction of the Surgeon General by Brevet Lieutenant Colonel George A. Otis, Assistant Surgeon, U.S.A., Curator of the Army Medical Museum."

Many of the anatomical specimens depicted were collected on behalf of the Army Medical Museum (now the National Museum of Health and Medicine) by Dr. John Hill Brinton. The compilation and photography of subjects was supervised by Dr. George Alexander Otis, who succeeded Brinton as curator of the museum in 1864. William Bell, famous for his later images of the American west, served as Chief Photographer for the museum from 1865 to 1868, and photographed many of the portrait sitters and specimens himself.