Surgical pathology in the era of the Civil War: the remarkable life and accomplishments of Joseph Janvier Woodward, MD.

Abstract

Joseph Janvier Woodward was an assistant surgeon in the US Army during the Civil War, coauthored the definitive works on the mortality and morbidity of that war, attended at the autopsy of President Lincoln, and attended President Garfield after he was shot. He revolutionized the field of photomicroscopy and was one of the first pathologists to use aniline dyes as tissue stains. Yet despite the occasional biographical sketch every few decades, he is largely unknown today. Herein, we review his contributions to surgical pathology and medicine and present modern-day photomicrographs of 140-year-old slides from Woodward's original collection.