Hard Rubber Medicine Syringes Used During Civil War Black hard rubber syringes from makers like Goodyear Rubber Co. were purchased by the Union Medical Department during the Civil War for various medical procedures.  Among those procedures were for rectal infusion of liquids, application of medication to the eyes, ears, penis, and other orifices.  With the discovery of hard rubber the field of rubber's usefulness was still further largely extended. The prosperity of the early rubber companies which took their rise from Goodyear's patent in 1844, was sufficient to warrant them in paying Daniel Webster, who defended the patent in a seven years' lawsuit—,finally adjudicated in 1852,—a fee of $25,000—the largest legal fee that had at that time been paid in this country.   The Civil War gave a great impetus to the rubber industry. This was particularly true of the clothing branch; blankets were needed for the soldiers, and the government gave out large contracts.  The boot and shoe industry increased rapidly with the other branches of rubber manufacture, so that, from an output in 1860 of the value of $795,000, the yearly output in 1870 had increased to $8,000,000.   List of Hospital supply inventory and identification from 1865 The following article from Tiemann's catalog illustrates one of the uses of these syringes as does the collage of syringes illustrates the variety: