Hospital stewards duties

This was the supply and distribution side of pharmacy the care and dispensing side was the responsibility of the hospital steward. While the duties of the purveyor were straightforward and clearly circumscribed, those of the hospital steward were extensive and varied. 

The official duties and responsibilities of hospital stewards were set down by Joseph Janvier Woodward (1833-1884) in The Hospital Steward s Manual - Because the hospital steward had, under the direction of the surgeon, general supervision over aU aspects of the entire hospital,23 the manual covers not only his duties but those for whom he was responsible wardmasters, nurses, female nurses, cooks, and laundresses. Virtually everyone, except physicians, reported to the steward, who served as the hospital s chief administrator. On the instractions of the senior medical officer, aU issues of order and security, light and ventilation, quality and quantity of food, cleanliness and orderliness of the wards and grounds devolved to the steward. In accordance with the breadth of his responsibilities, he was to receive obedience from all non-commissioned officers, enlisted men, and citizen nurses in the hospital. 24 As part of the steward s regular duties, he was also supposed to make thorough inspections of the entire... 

In similar fashion Jonathan Wood, of the 14th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, was clearly serving in the capacity of a hospital steward, though listed officially on the rolls as a private.35 Wood s unit had extensive duty throughout the South, seeing action in Kentucky,... 

Joseph Janvier Woodward, The Hospital Steward s Manual for the Instruction of Hospital Stewards, Ward-Masters, and Attendants, in Their Several Duties (Philadelphia J. B. Lippincott, 1862). 

The regulations and duties of hospital stewards are available in Joseph Janvier Woodward, The Hospital Steward s Manual (Philadelphia J. B. Lippincott, 1862). Although this is a U.S. Army publication, the responsibilities of stewards in the Confederacy were largely a mirror image of those found in this book and therefore are useful in seeing how pharmacy care was delivered in the military in general. 

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