Confederrate medical practises were far more homeopathic than those of the Union Army using nature medicines such as dogwood and other plants. Most were laxatives and diuretics. The Confederate practise of using these along with farming out patients to local families rather than confining them in hospitals tended to provide better overall care for sick soldiers.

As a whole confederate soldiers had a slightly better survival rate from sickness than did the Union soldier with far less incidences of aftereffects (addictions and poisonings) because of the lack of opiates and the heavy use of mercury compounds that were available and widely used in the Union Army.

Contrary to popular beliefs Confederate Doctors were somewhat more advanced in the Confederacy than the Union. For example because of Jefferson Davis the Confederate Army had Dentists where the Union Army did not have such officially. Davis tried the have Dentists incorporated into the Union Army when he was Sec. of War but his efforts were rejected. Also Choroform and Ether as seditives were easily made in laboratories of the day in the Confederacy. They were not readily available in field surgery because of storage and transportation requirements.

Many of these homeopathic remedies have been passed down to us, as it was to those doctor, as Home remedies. So the Confederate Doctors were not as hamstrung by the lack of "Modern Medicines" of their times as we would be lead to believe. In Fact it would seem that this lack of "dangerous modern medicine" may have actually contributed to better medical care of the Confederate soldiers over those of the North.