Preview – Rasbach, “I Am Perhaps Dying”

I Am Perhaps Dying: The Medical History of Spinal Tuberculosis Hidden in the Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, by Dennis Rasbach, MD, FACS, is a companion to Jan Croon’s The War Outside My Window, also from Savas Beatie. As the subtitle states, this is the back story of Gresham’s likely ailments, described but not diagnosed in the pages of his diary. This is a profusely illustrated work of 109 pp, plus a bibliography and index.  Footnotes are bottom-of-page.

The bulk of the text is Chapter 12 (55 pp.), which uses dozens of diary entries which, “together with medical commentary, can be understood in context with how LeRoy was experiencing his disease and injury.”

The other eleven chapters are broken down into historical diagnoses and the history of spinal tuberculosis and LeRoy’s treatment and suffering.

Dennis Rasbach is the author of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the Petersburg Campaign, and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.