ipl-logo

Medicine Before The Civil War Essay

964 Words4 Pages

The era of medicine before the Civil War wasn’t beneficial. They had just started common practices and having few uneducated nurses. When entering the Civil War diseases and hygiene became a huge problem for the soldiers on the front lines since doctors had little knowledge about medicine. Amputation, Lewis Sayre, and diseases aided the construct of modern medicine from the Civil War.
Amputation was a familiar use during the Civil War. Since medicine wasn’t advance during the war to give the necessary treatment to the solider for a bullet in their leg or arm surgeons saw amputation as the greatest survival for the solider (“Amputation”). The most amputated limbs were legs and arms (“Amputation”). In the medical tent the surgeons had numerous soldiers coming in with bullets in their limbs or diseases the soldiers have and if amputation was delayed for more than 48 hours there would be blood poisoning, bone infection, or gangrene in the solider (“Amputation”). …show more content…

In total measles ended 11,000 soldier’s life from both the Union and Confederate side (“Civil War Diseases”). Since all soldiers were close to together during the whole entire war the disease was able to spread rapidly to one solider and to the next solider (“Civil War Diseases”). Measles wasn’t as deadly as any other diseases that were contracted in the Civil War (“Civil War Diseases”). The Civil War was the start of frequently used practices and vaccinations. They started using amputation in a less advanced way but learned from their mistakes to only use amputation when it’s necessary. Lewis Sayre was a huge support by conducting the first surgery for hip-joint ankylosis, but even since him we have conducted more surgeries than ever for more than one body part. With the discovery of the diseases in the Civil War, influenced the need for vaccinations for those different diseases to prevent them from harming the human

Show More
Related

Book Report On The Killer Angels By Shaara

994 Words | 4 Pages

“[Ewell] had lost a leg at Manassas and had just recently returned to the army, and he was standing awkwardly balancing himself against the unfamiliar leg… swaying nervously, clutching a fencepost,” (Shaara, 224). He is missing part of his leg, and explains that a minie ball hit his leg “just below the jointed knee” (Shaara, 225); back in the day minie balls were used and could shatter bone, so doctors would render the wound untreatable and amputate the limb it hit. Amputations were very common and done with anesthesia, which was recently made at the time; sometimes they didn’t use it when amputations occurred. When James Longstreet, a lieutenant general, is riding off back to the camp after the first day of the battle, he sees a wagon with many limbs in it. “[Longstreet] passed by a hospital wagon, saw mounded limbs glowing whitely in the dark, a pile of legs, another of arms.

Read More

Book Report On The Killer Angels By Michael Shaara

615 Words | 3 Pages

328-329). Unlike Reynolds, Armistead had the unfortunate experience of dying from an infection that had set in. As stated earlier, infectious wounds were a major cause of death in patients, even in those who had acquired non-fatal lacerations. The reasons behind infections and disease being a type of epidemic were the fact that army camps themselves were filthy and crowded, the hospitals nursing downed soldiers hardly any better. Hospitals were usually makeshift and always understaffed, and the use of antiseptic or sanitizing surgical tools were rare if at all, allowing germs to fester everywhere and anywhere.

Read More

Genera General Order # 29 Analysis

1113 Words | 5 Pages

The Congress authorized the establishment of a Medical Service in July 1775 (Owen, 2007). The move was to enhance the coordination of medical care that was necessary for the continental army during the time of revolutionary war. Additionally, the formation of Army Medical service aimed at providing expert care to the U.S soldiers as well as their families. Besides, the move made a significant contribution towards assisting the wounded American soldiers in continuing with their missions in various wars. The establishment of the Medical Service also allowed for the training of a formidable team of nurses who had the full dedication to maintaining and promoting the health of the American soldiers, restoring the health of wounded soldiers, as well as sustaining the families of the soldiers.

Read More

Summary Of This Republic Of Suffering: Death And The American Civil War

972 Words | 4 Pages

Drew Gilpin Faust, wrote the book This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, this book was about the suffrage in the Civil War. Although more specifically the book goes in depth about the death of the ones who was in the war as well as the spiritual. Since this was back in the nineteenth century, they have not had the access to the medical technology that we do today. This then led to many deaths from “infections, disease in the camp, and that doctors did not have the knowledge to use clean instruments when treating a wound properly” (Faust 4). Though just from 1861 and 1865 it was estimated about 620,000 soldiers died in the Civil War, this is a time expand of approximately four years.

Read More

Michael Shaara The Killer Angels Analysis

543 Words | 3 Pages

Back then the only way shooting a gun was with smokeless or black powder and the spent bullet which caused serious damage. His wound wasn’t sereve so they saw it not concerning and amputation wasn’t going to happen. Today’s modern medicine to treat a wound like that you would get a scan like an MRI or CT scan to see if any serve damage to the bone and soft

Read More

Americ The Great Smallpox Epidemic Of 1775-82 By Elizabeth Fenn

525 Words | 3 Pages

As the revolution moves to the south, so did the havoc of smallpox especially amongst the Native Americans and African American slaves who never had any immunity from the

Read More

How Did The Letterman Change Throughout The Civil War

1147 Words | 5 Pages

During the beginning of the of the Civil War, there were many medical advancements, like the quinine a drug that helped fight Malaria. The doctors had just recently discovered bacteria and antisepsis. With this new knowledge, they began to change the way they treated patients and organized areas for treating the wounded. They started to think about things like cleanliness and how to set up a hospital. As the Civil War went on, it was less of a battle to see who was winning the fights and more to see who could keep their men healthy.

Read More

The Role Of The Surgeons In The Civil War

384 Words | 2 Pages

Many many deaths were blamed upon surgeons in the Civil War, but was it really their fault? Due to a low budget for equipment and the lack of surgeon training , Civil War surgeons were treated unfairly economically and socially after the war. The surgeons were socially affected because everyone treated them poorly. Bystanders outside of the war thought that the surgeons were being unhuman like and not giving their patients anesthesia.

Read More

Medicine During The Civil War Essay

1629 Words | 7 Pages

During the Civil War, the grotesque and gruesome injuries plagued the battlefield. Medicine was in its infancy and very few advances had been made. Even basic procedures and some techniques that common people are taught today, were not developed. The problem of only having basic medicine became a problem in saving the lives of the wounded soldiers. Surgeons were given very little schooling and were not prepared for injuries that this war would bring.

Read More

Union Soldier Life

887 Words | 4 Pages

There were over 30,000 amputation procedures done during the Civil War and depending on where you received the surgery is what your death rate was. “Hip amputations… had mortality rates of around 83%. An upper arm amputation… had a mortality rate of about 24%.” Not only did soldiers have to endure the war, once they came home their partners would notice that things were different with

Read More

Medicine During The Civil War Essay

1911 Words | 8 Pages

The Civil War was filled with many diseases and deaths. Over 620,000 men lost their lives during this war; roughly two thirds of the casualties were caused by the lack of medical knowledge of many diseases. The remaining one third of the casualties was from the actual battle itself. The war became a turning point for many women interested in the medical field. The knowledge of medicine was the beginning of a new age during the Civil War, and the lack of it led to many gruesome deaths.

Read More

How Did The Civil War Impacted Medicine

1061 Words | 5 Pages

Moreover, how did the Civil War impacted medicine raised important points to be considered such as the disease-causing

Read More

Civil War Weapons

682 Words | 3 Pages

One new weapon during the civil war was the musket and what came with the musket was the mini ball that inflicted severe damage to whatever it hit (mostly bone and tissue of a human). The new weapons were used in all of the civil war battles, one was the newer cannons built on the ironclads like the monitor and the Merrimack during the battle of Hampton roads. The Mini balls, muskets, and cannons helped start a new advancement in weaponry all the way to weapons of mass destruction. Don’t forget the weapons also caused a lot of deaths as said in the last paragraph above. This new innovation of weapons helped the union inflict a lot of damage of lees forces in a lot of the battles like the battle of Gettysburg.

Read More

Valley Forge Essay

665 Words | 3 Pages

I have a very large of dying from the sicknesses getting passed around. I overheard General George Washington say that around 3,989 soldiers have gotten sick by February (Busch 147). And that 2,500 deaths have come from sickness (Busch 147). Frostbite and Smallpox have played a big part here at Valley Forge. Frostbite has gotten many people’s limb taken off.

Read More

Emotional Effects Of War On Soldiers Essay

1881 Words | 8 Pages

“diseases such as tuberculosis...asthma...heart conditions...trench foot...” (Brought To Life:

Read More

More about Medicine Before The Civil War Essay

Related Topics

Open Document