Doctor to the Front: The Recollections of Confederate Surgeon Thomas Fanning Wood, 1861-1865 (Voices of the Civil War)

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Summary: Wartime experiences as a Confederate Army surgeon
Review: Doctor To The Front: The Recollections Of Confederate Surgeon Thomas Fanning Wood 1861-1865 is the latest addition to the University of Tennessee Press Voices of the Civil War Series and an outstanding contribution to Civil War studies. Military doctors labored through the smoke of battle where impossible conditions and fear of infection compelled them to resort to amputation -- an operation most often performed without painkillers. Thomas Wood's account of his wartime experiences as a Confederate Army surgeon and his recollections of those events provide the reader with a vividly narrated "window in time" to those harrowing days. Very highly recommended for personal, professional, and academic Civil War reading lists and reference collections, Doctor To The Front combines historically significant information with human interest accounts to reveal still another horrific facet of the civil war.

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Summary: A Fine Narrative!
Review: This is a terrific book that discusses the life of a Confederate army surgeon. Thomas Wood wrote his "recollections" nearly twenty-one years after the war ended. Wood wrote of his adventures in the third North Carolina Regiment. He saw Chancellorsville,Gettysburg,and many others. He gives interesting biographic sketches on different members of the regiment. Wood's letters home are included in the book to make it very interesting. The medical situation was very inadequate. There was very little knowledge of sanitary laws. Wood did not truly have any medical degree,nor was he recommended by a medical school,he began to practice medicine after developing an interest in it after recovering in an army hospital.
I enjoyed this book because Wood writes well. His detail of the battles are interesting.
Though it may interest the historian,I think that a book like this should be enjoyed by anyone who loves a good book.
One other book on medical history is Kate: the Journal of a Confederate Nurse by Kate Cumming.