Tiemann Civil War Military Small Amputation Set

During the first year of the Civil War, a small amputation set was specified by Dr. Frank Hamilton in his book on Military Surgery.  The amputation set was very limited in scope, but was meant to be part of 'field preparations' as shown by the following list:

 Practical Treatise on Military Surgery, (1861) by Frank H. Hamilton, M.D. 

Additional information on:  Frank Hastings Hamilton

See pages from this manual regarding instruments found in Civil War surgical sets.

Dr. Frank Hamilton's list of field instruments from his book.  Note the listing of an Amputating Set. 

Given the Tiemann maker label with a 63 Chatham address, military latch and the type of instruments in this set, I believe this is an example of the type set Hamilton described in his text book.  George Tiemann was a major supplier of surgical instruments during the Civil War and the 63 Chatham address was his address immediately before and during the first three years of the War:  1855-63/64: 63 Chatham and 44 Eldridge.

The size of the mahogany amputation case is (15 1/2 x 5 x 2 1/2 inches ) with unengraved brass plate and most important, the sliding military latch which indicates a special order from Tiemann.

A single military sliding brass latch instead of bilateral military latches on front of the case

 

 

The section holding the bone forceps, metacarpal saw, and capital saw is about 1 in. high, removable, and sits on top of the lower half of the case.

All instruments are marked with Tiemann in the old English style font

The prongs of the tourniquet lock are cast brass at this point, as opposed to the blued steel seen in later military tourniquets

Suture needles

See article on use of suture needles

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Tiemann Dissection Set and Hernstein Leather Pocket Surgical Kit

Both the Tiemann dissection set and the Hernstein kit have maker labels which date them to the same time frame as the Tiemann amputation set.  Since they were all obtained from the same source and family, it is assumed they were owned by the same doctor and those three items would be consistent with a surgeon in the field during the first year of the War.  At this point, the larger surgical sets seen on this site would have been relegated to rear area hospitals or large field hospitals.

Go to the Hernstein leather roll-up leather kit

Go to the Tiemann Civil War era dissection (post-mortem) set