http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/img/EV_Logo_sm.gif This is the url http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org The first and ultimate online reference work about the Commonwealth /Civil_War_Pensions Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:41:42 EST http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/encyclopediavirginia/cat39/~3/CbJTgIAD4tc/Civil_War_Pensions In the immediate postwar years, Virginia tried to provide aid to its soldiers who had suffered significant disabilities during the American Civil War (1861–1865), especially those who had lost limbs. Over time the state shifted its artificial-limbs program to a commutation payment. By 1888 the state had begun to create a pension system that would allot annual payments not only to severely disabled veterans, but also to widows—women whose husbands had died during the conflict. Over the next three decades the state legislature liberalized the requirement for this program to the point that it became an old age pension system for Confederate veterans. Relative to the federal pension program and the other former Confederate states that gave pensions, the amount of Virginia's pensions was much smaller.
Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:41:42 EST]]>http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Civil_War_Pensions /Chaloner_John_Armstrong_1862-1935 Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:29:48 EST http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/encyclopediavirginia/cat39/~3/XQy-f55OO5g/Chaloner_John_Armstrong_1862-1935 John Armstrong Chaloner was a celebrity and writer known for coining the catchphrase "Who's looney now?" after his personal trials with psychiatric experimentation and treatment. When his wealthy family learned that he believed he possessed a new sense, which he called the "X-Faculty," they had him committed to a psychiatric hospital in New York in 1897; a court later declared him insane and ruled he be permanently institutionalized. He escaped the institution and was ultimately deemed sane more than twenty years later. In the meantime, he published about two dozen books on his experiments with psychotherapy and his stay in the insane asylum. His books, such as The Lunacy Law of the World (1906), often attacked the rising power of psychiatric medicine, and his case was controversial particularly among the nation's leading psychologists, who disagreed about whether he was rational or paranoid. He married and divorced the novelist Amélie Rives, but lived near her Albemarle County home for much of his life.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:29:48 EST]]>http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Chaloner_John_Armstrong_1862-1935 /Diet_in_Early_Virginia_Indian_Society Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:32:54 EST http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/encyclopediavirginia/cat39/~3/XWOlr-6WhV0/Diet_in_Early_Virginia_Indian_Society Diet in early Virginia Indian society changed significantly from the Ice Age to the English colonists' landing at Jamestown in 1607, from initially relying more on meat to over time increasingly combining wild game, fish, nuts, and berries. The Indians' eating patterns were shaped by the seasons, and for the Powhatans there were five, not four. In the early and mid-spring (cattapeuk), they ate migrating fish and planted crops. From late in the spring until mid-summer (cohattayough), they split their time between the towns, where they weeded the fields, and the forests, where they foraged. Late summer (nepinough) was harvest time, and the autumn and early winter (taquitock) the occasion for feasts and religious rituals. This marked a second time in the year when the Indians abandoned their towns, this time for communal hunts. Meats were prepared and stored for the late winter and early spring (popanow), when shortages made life difficult and even dangerous. "They be all of them huge eaters," the colonist William Strachey observed of the Powhatans, but the Indians also lived intensely physical lives, requiring a large number of calories. Their metabolisms, meanwhile, were slow enough to store nutrients and then, during shortages, use them slowly while the people remained active. The colonist John Smith described the Powhatans as living "hand to mouth," but they were often better fed than the colonists with a diet that was low in fat, sugar, and salt, and high in protein and fiber.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:32:54 EST]]>http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Diet_in_Early_Virginia_Indian_Society /Bohun_Lawrence_d_1621 Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:02:33 EST http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/encyclopediavirginia/cat39/~3/oKya5nDOGb0/Bohun_Lawrence_d_1621 Lawrence Bohun was a member of the govenror's Council and physician general of the Virginia colony. Born probably in England, Bohun may have received his medical training at Leiden. He sailed to Virginia in 1610 as personal physician to the governor. Bohun returned to England and in 1612 was named as a shareholder in the third charter of the Virginia Company of London. While practicing medicine in London, he retained his interest in Virginia and may have been involved in an attempt to introduce silk culture there. Appointed physician general of the colony and a member of the Council in 1620, Bohun sailed for Virginia but was killed on March 19, 1621, when Spanish warships attacked his ship in the West Indies.
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:02:33 EST]]>http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Bohun_Lawrence_d_1621 /Ambler_James_M_1848-1881 Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:54:57 EST http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/encyclopediavirginia/cat39/~3/Jii2AaUIa1c/Ambler_James_M_1848-1881 James M. Ambler was a Confederate cavalryman during the American Civil War (1861–1865) and, after the war, a United States Navy surgeon. Ambler graduated from medical school in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1870 and joined the Navy, serving on various ships and at the Norfolk Naval Hospital. In 1878, he reluctantly volunteered for service with an Arctic expedition aboard the Jeannette, a ship commanded by George W. De Long. The ship became imprisoned by ice late in 1879, and Ambler did well to keep the crew not only alive but relatively healthy. Still adrift in June 1881, the Jeannette struck ice, which crushed its wooden hull. While a few of the crew's thirty-three men survived, many froze to death, drowned, or starved, including Ambler, who died with De Long sometime around October 30, 1881.
Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:54:57 EST]]>http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Ambler_James_M_1848-1881 /Hygiene_During_the_Pre-Colonial_Era_Personal Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:37:42 EST http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/encyclopediavirginia/cat39/~3/812bbQ_lTvE/Hygiene_During_the_Pre-Colonial_Era_Personal Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:37:42 EST]]>http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Hygiene_During_the_Pre-Colonial_Era_Personal /Christian_William_S_1830-1910 Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:47:55 EST http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/encyclopediavirginia/cat39/~3/Po4XkIwHoG0/Christian_William_S_1830-1910 Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:47:55 EST]]>http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Christian_William_S_1830-1910 /Charlottesville_During_the_Civil_War Thu, 26 May 2011 14:45:02 EST http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/encyclopediavirginia/cat39/~3/fWmRwUHGK-g/Charlottesville_During_the_Civil_War Charlottesville provided the Confederate war effort with swords, uniforms, and artificial limbs during the American Civil War (1861–1865). It was also home to a 500-bed military hospital that employed hundreds of the town's residents, cared for more than 22,000 patients, and was superintended by Dr. James L. Cabell, a professor of medicine at the nearby University of Virginia. In the summer of 1861, the 19th Virginia Infantry Regiment was organized, recruiting most of its members from Charlottesville and Albemarle County. The unit served with the Army of Northern Virginia all the way through to the Appomattox Campaign (1865), including at Pickett's Charge (1863), where it lost 60 percent of its men. African Americans, both enslaved and free, who composed a majority of the town and county's population, were the subject of heightened white fears of violence, their movements controlled by a curfew. In 1863, black members of the biracial First Baptist Church established the Charlottesville African Church. Although the war's fighting stayed mostly to the east and west, a raid led by Union general George A. Custer was stopped just north of the city in the spring of 1864. Early the next year, town leaders surrendered Charlottesville to Custer, preventing the community's destruction.
Thu, 26 May 2011 14:45:02 EST]]>http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Charlottesville_During_the_Civil_War /Blaikley_Catherine_Kaidyee_ca_1695-ca_1771 Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:11:04 EST http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/encyclopediavirginia/cat39/~3/ddvrBbc8xUg/Blaikley_Catherine_Kaidyee_ca_1695-ca_1771 Catherine Kaidyee Blaikley was a midwife who, during the mid-eighteenth century in Virginia, purportedly delivered as many as three thousand babies. Probably born in York County, Blaikley married a watchmaker who, when he died in 1736, left her a substantial estate, including land in Henrico County, a mill in Brunswick County, and a lot in Williamsburg. Catherine Blaikley maintained her relatively high standard of living by becoming a midwife in Williamsburg in 1739. By the time of her death in 1771, male midwives also were delivering babies, a process that led to male physicians gradually replacing female midwives.
Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:11:04 EST]]>http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Blaikley_Catherine_Kaidyee_ca_1695-ca_1771 /Valentine_Lila_Meade_1865-1921 Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:54:05 EST http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/encyclopediavirginia/cat39/~3/jQeJTC1Zv1o/Valentine_Lila_Meade_1865-1921 Lila Meade Valentine was a suffragist, education reformer, and public-health advocate. During her abbreviated life, she played a vital role in creating and running organizations that improved the health-care and public school systems of her native city of Richmond. Valentine also became an ardent supporter of woman suffrage early in the 1900s, cofounding the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia and serving as an active member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. A talented organizer and an eloquent speaker, Valentine led efforts on behalf of suffrage that came to fruition in 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, giving women the right to vote.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:54:05 EST]]>http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Valentine_Lila_Meade_1865-1921 /Kepone Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:35:53 EST http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/encyclopediavirginia/cat39/~3/fj1EYBTdXnA/Kepone Kepone, also known as chlordecone, is a toxic, nonbiodegradable insecticide that a chemical plant in Hopewell, Virginia dumped into the James River from 1966 until 1975. The chemical's negative effect on the environment was documented and eventually publicized, leading authorities to shut down the Allied Chemical Corporation plant that produced Kepone and to order fishing bans and advisories. The environmental and medical scandal was one of the first of its kind to play out nationally, and while it eventually led to the destruction of the Virginia fishing industry, it also led to improved environmental awareness.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:35:53 EST]]>http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Kepone /Chimborazo_Hospital Tue, 01 Mar 2011 11:33:52 EST http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/encyclopediavirginia/cat39/~3/Tr9CPYYuop4/Chimborazo_Hospital Chimborazo Hospital, located in the Confederate capital of Richmond, was the largest and most famous medical facility in the South during the American Civil War (1861–1865). The hospital admitted nearly 78,000 patients suffering from battlefield wounds and diseases. Of this number, approximately 6,500 to 8,000 died, resulting in a mortality rate of about 9 percent. Few hospitals in the Confederacy had lower mortality rates, and those that did generally received patients who were further along in their recovery. The best-staffed and equipped Union hospitals, in comparison, achieved a 10 percent mortality rate. With no model to draw on, Chimborazo Hospital's success can be attributed to a combination of its open-air, pavilion-style design; the comparatively good quality of care; innovative practices; and the supreme dedication of the caregivers—men and women, black and white, slave and free. Their efforts contributed to one of the great advancements in mid-nineteenth-century medicine: the acceptance of hospital care for the sick and injured, which was a concept not embraced in America prior to 1865.
Tue, 01 Mar 2011 11:33:52 EST]]>http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Chimborazo_Hospital /Medicine_in_Virginia_During_the_Civil_War Mon, 13 Dec 2010 15:34:51 EST http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/encyclopediavirginia/cat39/~3/so9zQjiNaBM/Medicine_in_Virginia_During_the_Civil_War The medicine practiced in Virginia by the Union and Confederate armies during the American Civil War (1861–1865) was state of the art for its day and an important factor in the ability of both governments to raise and maintain armies in the field. More than twice as many soldiers died of disease than from combat-related injuries. Still, despite many nineteenth-century misconceptions about the causes and treatments of disease, three out of four soldiers survived their illnesses. This was due in part to widespread vaccination for smallpox, isolation of most contagious diseases, and especially the recognition of the importance of cleanliness and sanitation. As the war dragged on, combat injuries became more prevalent and the work of surgeons became more important. Surgery, though unsterile, saved lives through amputation. Such procedures were done, for the most part, with adequate pain control and some form of anesthesia. To care for the wounded, both sides established a system of hospitals, ranging from makeshift field hospitals and interim "corps hospitals" (used by Confederates), to large, fixed general hospitals such as the sprawling Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond. It was often painful and dangerous for the wounded to be transported from the battlefield to the hospital, but in the end the quality of medical care they received was generally high and led to important medical advances during the postwar period and twentieth century.
Mon, 13 Dec 2010 15:34:51 EST]]>http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Medicine_in_Virginia_During_the_Civil_War