There’s a lot (most everything) about Walt Whitman that I don’t know. Recently I’ve been introduced to a wonderful web site called brainpickings, delightfully filled with essays such as this one about Walt Whitman’s views on health care and the art of healing.
I did not realize his involvement as a hospital volunteer during the civil war and had little knowledge of his thoughts on healing. brainpickings is a gem!
There is a lovely small book, “Walt Whitman’s Civil War,” that contains some of the “Brainpickings” material and more. Whitman began nursing in the just-finished Patent Office building, where cots were arranged around the glass cases that had just been installed to display patented objects. One of his poems begins, “An old man among young men I go,” and he describes his work as “distributing myself.” While much of the medical work he did has long since been discovered to be an effective means of spreading infection, his personal and social nursing care probably saved many lives. He describes the effect of that kind of work on a young man who was weak and hardly responsive; his terse note ends, “he will live.” Thank you for including this.
By the way: the way this email posting works, it automatically starts names with capital letters. My email, lsnow27@hotmail.com, won’t get to me with an initial cap.