Was Civil War surgery effective?

Matthew Baker

Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, 2018, vol. 51, issue 1, 49-61

Abstract: During the U.S. Civil War surgeons performed a vast number of surgeries. Whether surgery increased wounded soldiers’ chances of survival has been debated ever since. I analyze a unique observational data set gathered by Dr. Edmund Andrews, a surgeon with the 1st Illinois Light Artillery. I use Dr. Andrews’s data, model selection tools, and doubly robust estimation methods to estimate treatment effects from surgery. I find that surgery increased wounded soldiers’ chances of survival by 0.09–0.16, depending on the specific model of surgical procedure.

Date: 2018
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Working Paper: Was Civil War Surgery Effective? (2016)
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DOI: 10.1080/01615440.2017.1408440

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