Soldier’s disease

Meanwhile, opium had been joined by other narcotics. Back in 1805 a German pharmacist s assistant had discovered how to isolate its main ingredient, morphine. A preparation of morphine is about 10 times as potent as raw opium. In 1832, another morphine derivative called codeine was isolated. By the 1850s, a more effective way to administer these powerful narcotics was developed—the hypodermic needle. During the American Civil War, battlefield surgeons had one effective way to relieve the pain of a shattered limb or punctured lung—an injection of morphine. Soldiers who survived their wounds after this treatment often became addicted to the drug. Morphine addiction was thus sometimes referred to as the soldier s disease. ... 

During the Civil War, morphine was so widely used to relieve the suffering of soldiers that morphine addiction later was called the soldier s disease..— The addiction that came with frequent use of opium and morphine became more widely recognized, and what had been called "God s Medi cine" showed a downside. But most of the estimated million Americans who were addicted in 1890 did not know they were addicted. 

This drug came into importance after 1853, when Dr. Alexander Wood of Scotland invented the hypodermic needle. Stories of morphine addiction in. the American Civil War are classic, and the term "Soldier s Disease" was often used synonymously by the American public with morphirte addiction. 

In the United States—where the inhabitants were considered filthy, bordering on the beastly —basins, pitchers, and washstands did not become middle-class essentials until after 1850. During the American Civil War, the North adopted Florence Nightingale s nursing reforms to popularize hygiene and keep its soldiers disease-free. 

Our initial expectations were that we would interview far more FDA officials than we did. However, we ended up interviewing more DoD officials, at all levels of policy and operations. Officials were interviewed in the following DoD offices Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program (AVIP) J-4 Eogistics Directorate Office of the ASD(HA) JPO-BD the Defense Supply Center in Philadelphia Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs U.S. Army Soldier Biological and Chemical Command U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity and U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases... 

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