While you are planning for your student group to visit the Gettysburg area, you may want to explore the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. During the war, medical procedures were much different than they are in the modern world. The museum is located in Frederic Maryland which was and continues to be the crossroads during the Civil War. There are a variety of museums, shops, and restaurants in the area. There are five exhibit galleries which contain fascinating artifacts for your group to explore. The students can be educated on the war by taking a self-guided tour of the facility. During the tour, you will examine all of the exhibit galleries. This atmosphere is a perfect place for you to teach students and conduct research about the Civil War. One of the exhibit galleries is known as the Medical Education Gallery. The visual scene tells the story of how medical education changed during the war. At the beginning of the conflict, physicians did not have knowledge about germ theory or antiseptic practices. There were 60 medical schools in America prior to the war. Another exhibit room is the Recruitment Gallery. Students will learn about how recruits were given a physical during the enlistment process. Sometimes they were superficial and soldiers had chronic diseases and defects that affected their performance as a soldier. Both the North and the South instituted a draft to secure the large number of soldiers needed to fight. Students can also learn about the embalming process in the Embalming room. The other galleries focus on topics such as camp life, the evacuation of the wounded, the field hospital, and modern military medicine. Each room has its own story and gives visitors a glimpse into what medicine was like during the War.