Captain James Cuthbert 'Cuddy' Dinwiddie, known also as "Doctor Dinwiddie," was a

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between ...

military surgeon who inadvertently advanced the treatment against

microorganisms A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in olde ...

and infections during his service as a battlefield surgeon during the American Civil War. During this period, the army doctors on both sides were greatly handicapped as microorganisms weren't well understood and the germ theory of disease and antibiotics were still a few years away. Many soldiers died from infections that modern medicine would now be able to easily treat.

Angel's Glow

Captain Dinwiddie had witnessed the carnage of the

Battle of Shiloh The Battle of Shiloh (also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing) was fought on April 6–7, 1862, in the American Civil War. The fighting took place in southwestern Tennessee, which was part of the war's Western Theater. The battlefield i ...

and was greatly interested by the increased survival on those wounded soldiers that exhibited "Angels Glow". Angels Glow was caused by the then unknown

bioluminescent Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by living organisms. It is a form of chemiluminescence. Bioluminescence occurs widely in marine vertebrates and invertebrates, as well as in some Fungus, fungi, microorganisms including ...

bacteria ''

Photorhabdus luminescens ''Photorhabdus luminescens'' (previously called ''Xenorhabdus luminescens'') is a Gammaproteobacterium of the family Morganellaceae, and is a lethal pathogen of insects. It lives in the gut of an entomopathogenic nematode of the family Heteror ...

''. It has been reported that infection by this bacterium of the wounds of soldiers in the Civil War caused the wounds to glow, and that this aided the survival of the soldiers due to the production of antibiotics by ''P. luminescens''. This led to the phenomenon's nickname "Angel's Glow."

Effective method despite flawed model

After his observations of the unexplained impact of angels glow, Dinwiddie's erroneous conclusion was that mortification (now called

gangrene Gangrene is a type of tissue death caused by a lack of blood supply. Symptoms may include a change in skin color to red or black, numbness, swelling, pain, skin breakdown, and coolness. The feet and hands are most commonly affected. If the ga ...

or necrosis) was caused by "dark humors" or "bad air" (

miasma theory The miasma theory (also called the miasmatic theory) is an obsolete medical theory that held that diseases—such as cholera, chlamydia, or the Black Death—were caused by a ''miasma'' (, Ancient Greek for 'pollution'), a noxious form of "bad ...

) that had contacted his surgical instruments, clothing and bedding, and moreover, these dark humors could be eradicated by heat and noise. Based on his flawed idea Dr. Dinwiddie began a daily practice of placing his surgical bedding and instruments into a large pot of boiling pine tea. When the steam (in his mind the 'dark humors' or 'bad air') came to the surface, he would ring a

cow bell A cowbell (or cow bell) is a bell worn around the neck of free-roaming livestock so herders can keep track of an animal via the sound of the bell when the animal is grazing out of view in hilly landscapes or vast plains. Although they are t ...

to frighten them away. Dr. Dinwiddie's infection rates plummeted. While his model of induced bacterial necrosis was flawed, his practice greatly reduced mortality amongst his patients, as boiling the tools and bedsheets served to kill germs, functioning as a basic form of sterilization.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dinwiddie, James Confederate States Army surgeons