Union Private John Parmenter, Company G, Sixty-seventh Pennsylvania Volunteers
On loan to The Met
This work of art is currently on loan to the museum.In this remarkable carte de visite, Private Parmenter lies unconscious from anesthesia on an operating table at Harewood Hospital in Washington, D.C. To save his patient’s life, Doctor Bontecou amputated the soldier’s wounded, ulcerous foot. Before the discovery of antibiotics, gangrene was a dreaded and deadly infection that greatly contributed to the high mortality rate of soldiers during the Civil War.
Artwork Details
- Title: Union Private John Parmenter, Company G, Sixty-seventh Pennsylvania Volunteers
- Artist: Reed Brockway Bontecou (American, 1824–1907)
- Date: June 21, 1865
- Medium: Albumen silver print from glass negative
- Dimensions: Image: 5.7 x 9.1 cm (2 1/4 x 3 9/16 in.)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Collection Stanley B. Burns, M.D.
- Curatorial Department: Photographs