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Dr. Samuel D. Gross, prominent Philadelphia surgeon, teacher and author, publishes A Manual of Military Surgery for use by the young surgeons flocking into the army. A copy is later captured by Confederate troops and reprinted for the Southern physicians.
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- Auguste Nelaton of Paris, a French physician and surgeon, invents his “probe”, a device to determine the location of a lead bullet or other hard body in a wound.
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A major pandemic of smallpox sweeps both armies.
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- A special hospital ward for soldiers with eye injuries is set up in Forsythe, Georgia.
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Joseph Lister of Scotland initiates antiseptic surgery by using carbolic acid on a compound wound and introduces phenol as a disinfectant in surgery, reducing the surgical death rate from 45 to 15 percent
