The Greater Good

National Museum of Civil War Medicine

The nonprofit NMCWM, based in Frederick, Md., explores the world of medical, surgical, and nursing innovation during the Civil War. To learn more about the stories explored in this and future columns, visit civilwarmed.org. The museum also hosts walking tours to the city’s Civil War hospital sites on Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. from April to October.

numbers from the COVID-19 pandemic have, at various points, forced hospitals in the United States to make hard choices regarding who receives life-saving treatment and who does not. Especially in the pandemic’s early