Max Wocher; Max Wocher & Son; Louis Wocher, 1840-1900
Example of a
Max Wocher surgical set in this collection
Civil War
Max (Maximilian) Wocher
surgical instrument maker
1840: E. S. Walnut btw. 4th and 5th
1842-52: College cor. George and Plum
1853: II College
1855: 6th btw. Vine and Race (in Ohio Medical College building)
1856-1869: 105 W 6th (in Ohio Medical College building)
surgical and
dental instrument maker (1861) surgical and dental instrument
manufacturer (1863)
|
Max (Maximilian)
Wocher surgical instrument maker
1840: E. S.
Walnut btw. 4th and 5th
1842-52: College
cor. George and Plum
1853: II College
1855: 6th btw.
Vine and Race
1856-1869: 105 W
6th (surgical and dental instrument maker (1861) surgical and
dental instrument manufacturer (1863)
Wocher & Son is post-Civil War era |
Wocher
Pre-Civil War (1855)
Need Civil War years label
Post-Civil War: Wocher & Son
Post-Civil War Wocher & Son
|
_______________________
Post Civil War:
Max Wocher & Son
(Max Wocher and Samuel H. Hoeller [1870]; M. Wocher and Henry S. Hoeller
[1874]; Max Schmidt and Henry S. Hoeller [1895]) surgical and dental
instrument
makers
(1870)
manufacturers & importers of surgical and dental
instruments (1876)
1870-95: 105 W 6th
1896: 23 W 6th
1897-1900: 21 and 23 W 6th
Source: American Surgical Instruments: American Surgical Instruments: An Illustrated History of their
Manufacture and a Directory of Instrument Makers to 1900 by James M. Edmonson, Ph.D., Curator, Dittrick Museum of Medical
History, Cleveland Medical Library Association and Case Western Reserve
University.
The following
information relates to which military surgical sets the major and minor
makers may have supplied.
Federal government purchased
sets during the Civil War:
There are two major groups of Federal government
contract-ordered military surgery sets used during the Civil War:
First, the Army Hospital Department,
was a subdivision of the Medical Department. From 1861 to 1865,
the
U. S. Army Hospital Department sets, were specifically made for use during the Civil War. Yes,
there were a few Hospital Department marked sets which existed outside
the War years, but they are easily identified and dated by the
contents. (Note: There are U. S. A. Hosp. Dept. marked
sets used during the Mexican War of 1846, so
the trick is to correctly identify the maker and production dates.
The Army Medical Department before the Civil War was a small
bureaucracy, which consisted of less
than 100 doctors, most of whom were not performing surgery on a regular
basis as there were no wars, so there were not that many surgical sets
needed.)
Secondly, there are
U. S. Army Medical Department sets, which were
used by Army surgeons before, during, and after the Civil War.
With Medical Dept. marked sets you have to figure out when the set was
made via the maker address or style of the case and instruments, but the
vast majority of these sets were purchased immediately before or during
the first year of the War. The Medical Department engraved sets may have just been a
matter of the small group of doctors in the pre-war Medical Department
ordering military surgical sets out of a different military budget than the
budget created to run the whole War effort and assigned to the Hospital
Department bureaucracy.
At the start of the Civil War, the
Army Medical Department consisted of one surgeon-general (colonel),
thirty surgeons (major) , and eighty-three assistants (lieutenant).
Three of these surgeons and twenty-one assistants resigned "to go
South," and three assistants were dismissed for disloyalty. In
August, 1861, ten additional surgeons and twenty assistants were
authorized, and a corps of medical cadets was formed, not to exceed
fifty in number, to be employed under the direction of medical officers
as dressers in hospital. (Refer to: 'THE MEDICAL
DEPARTMENT' By Major Charles Smart, Surgeon U. S. A. for further
details.)
A minor category of 'government', but
not 'Federal', military sets are those purchased by the state volunteer
militias. These sets are
a minor source of military 'style' sets
purchased by various state voluntary militias
existing prior to and during the Civil War. These state groups,
which were later mustered into the Regular Army, could have ordered
military-style sets for their own use prior to or even during the War.
The
instrument makers made sets for the state militia groups before the War
or during the first year before the Med. or Hosp. Dept. purveyors
ordered the 4,000 sets for the Federal Army. This would account for the small number of
military sets we see from regional makers like Rees, Brinkerhoff,
Goulding, Otto, Shurtleff, etc. These regional makers could have
provided military-style sets for their local militia volunteers, but
were never under contract to supply the main-stream sets ordered and
used by the
Union Army during the War due to their inability to supply the large
numbers or quality of instruments.
Remember, the vast
majority of instrument makers in 1861, other than someone like Tiemann, were not geared for large
scale production, but rather crafted individual hand-made instruments
which were custom ordered by the surgeon or put-up in cases for sale as
a design by 'doctor so-and-so'. Other 'makers' imported instruments
from England and France to assemble sets as requested by a given doctor
or retail outlet such as a pharmacy or apothecary dealer.
It
is possible any
given military group could have contracted with any given instrument maker
to provide a set of instruments for their group with military latches and
military dedicated instruments. The markings or lack there-of on the
brass plates or instruments would be the telling point. Only the
official Union ordered sets would be engraved and marked as U.S.A. Hosp. Dept or Medical Dept. All others would be
either unmarked or otherwise marked depending on the owner. This may account for some un-marked
or inconsistently marked brass plates on military 'style' sets during or prior to the War years.
See: Identify
Civil War era sets.
Also, there are several resources on this site to help you identify the
earliest sets used during the War via the
1861 Army Supply Table.
State Volunteer Militia
Surgeons:
Before the War started,
there were state militias and each militia had 'medical' staff of some sort.
Unfortunately the state militias did not necessarily qualify their medical
officers and some if not many were simply medical wannabes: druggists,
preceptors, and individuals who 'attended' a medical lecture or two.
Yes, some were qualified surgeons as the literature proves, but there were
qualifying boards which vetted these individuals before they were allowed to
be designated as military surgeons in the Union Army and most likely by the
Confederate medical staff. The boards who
qualified these doctors as surgeons were often staffed by teaching faculty
at leading medical colleges. Among the famous surgeons and faculty who
performed this vetting service were:
Alexander Mott,
M.D. and
Joseph
Janvier Woodward, M.D.
See a discussion of the
State
Volunteer Militia,
by Major Charles Smart, Surgeon U. S. A.
There are surgical sets,
military and civilian issue (as previously discussed), which were provided to and/or owned by surgeons
who were part of State Volunteer Regiments or some division, and who may have
brought their own surgical sets when they were mustered into the Regular
Army. As mentioned above, these sets would not be marked for the U.S.A. Hospital
Department because the sets were provided to or owned by a state militia or
surgeon and not by the Federal Government. Of course it would be
difficult to prove unequivocally if a given set belonged to the surgeon
unless engraved or heavily documented. This is a very difficult area
to prove or disprove. But there are two or three sets in this
collection in this category. See a
Tiemann military set, which belonged to
Norman Smith, M.D. with the
6th. Mass. Volunteers.
