Cool U.S. Civil War Story of Iodine use

I though this was a cool story. Not that someone was
seriously injured, but that Iodine saved the day:

http://thyroid.about.com/library/derry/bl2a.htm



One of the most famous of documentations of Iodine skin therapy to a famous person occurred in the American Civil War.

"On September 29, 1862, Colonel John B. Gordon held the center of General Lee's army at the battle of Antietam, or Sharpsburg. The first volley from the northern lines sent a ball through the calf of Gordon's right leg; soon after, another went through the muscles of his thigh; a third pierced his left arm, tearing asunder the tendons and mangling the flesh; a forth ripped through his shoulder leaving a wad of clothing embedded in its track. Still, no bones were broken; but, while Gordon lingered in the firing line, "with", as he says himself, "but little of my usual strength", a fifth ball struck him squarely in the face.

Dr. Weatherly of the 6th Alabama Regiment, in charge of medical arrangements, had the Colonel removed to a base hospital, and prescribed tincture of Iodine to be painted on the wounds three or four times a day. The case was unpromising. Gordon's eyelids were greatly swollen; one eye was completely closed, the other almost so; his jaw was immovably clenched, and, to make matters worse, erysipelas (staphylococcus infection of skin) had set in on the left arm.

Mrs. Gordon, his wife, who nursed him - her name was Fanny, and she was then a beautiful girl of 25 - put a liberal interpretation on her instructions and painted the wounds, not three or four times a day, but, as Gordon himself says: "I think three to four hundred time a day." Fanny's diligence and devotion were rewarded. Her husband survived, outlived the war, became the Governor of Georgia, a General, and Commander-in-Chief of the United Confederate Veterans. He died in 1904." (10) Tweet