There has been considerable debate about whether stethoscopes were used by civil war doctors. The evidence that civil war surgeons did not use stethoscopes is usually referenced to the fact that the Harvard Medical School catalogue did not list ownership of a stethoscope until after the civil war in 1869. However, medical students owned their own stethoscopes dating back to the 1840s. There is ample evidence in civil war army medical documents that physical auscultatory signs related to diseases of the heart and lungs could only have been heard with use of the stethoscope.
In his highly regarded Manual of Military Surgery published in May of 1861, Samuel Gross said that "Organic cardiac disease could easily be detected with the stethoscope." Both union and confederate army medical department regulations and hospital reports show stethoscopes as part of the medical supplies for civil war hospitals. The 1863 Manual of Instructions for Military Surgeons by John Ordronaux, M.D. lists a stethoscope as part of Instruments for Special Diagnosis. A note in the section on Diseases of the Chest and Back states that "It is a good plan, in auscultating a party, to place him with his back against a wooden door or partition. The greater resonance of the pectoral sounds obtained by this process, will surprise those who have never before availed themselves of this simple acoustic medium." The manual also contains an illustrated Auscultatory Percussion Chart. This information confirms that the stethoscope was part of civil war medical supplies.
