Anesthesia During Civil War

Even though there was not any sanitation the chance of survival for stretched then pervious wars. Doctors had medical kits, which included different tool for cutting such as knives, scalpels, bone saws, chain saw, suture and bandages. Thermometers were rarely used. Doctors did have some painkillers, but they were not always given to all soldiers. The most effective were morphine and opium. What happened after the surgery? Soldiers were transported to a hospital by ambulance. Soldiers were normally in horrible pain making the trip almost unbearable to deal with. The greatest risks for soldiers were now infection.

The medicines and medical techniques used during the Civil War were very primitive for their time. Extremely little was known about germs and the dangers of infections. In Recovery, it is stated that, “Treating wounds and illnesses with medication had become common—opiates, stimulants, sedatives, diuretics, purgatives, and more were widely available and used. The first pills had been made in the early 1800s. The stethoscope and the

John Burford, a Brigadier General, had received a bullet to the knee during the Second Battle of Manassas. Luckily Buford’s bullet wound wasn’t too serious. If the wound had been serious, it would have been treated with amputations and since there were no anesthetics back then, the person getting amputated on would feel all the pain. Surgeries during the Civil War were performed unsanitary. Surgeons would not wash their hands before operating and would wear blood splattered clothing. The instruments used for operating were never disinfected properly. Instead, they would dip their instruments in cold water, often bloody from the prior operation. Buford had died in December 1863 of

World War I was a war of innovation with new artillery and tactics, but also a deadly war in which approximately ten million soldiers died in or injuries sustained from battle. As injuries increased throughout the war, the need for medical assistance was constantly growing. Surgery is considered an art and like art, it evolved and new techniques were developed, making an injury that could kill someone survivable. For instance, in the Civil War most surgeons would immediately amputate and in World War I surgeons began trying much harder to save limbs. Blood transfusion allowed surgeons to reduce patient death from blood loss because of the ample supply of blood from fellow soldiers. Sanitation improvements led to fewer deaths from infection

The Civil War had a tremendous death toll. In fact, it had more deaths than any of the previous wars combined. At the time, it was thought that the soldiers in battle died from the wounds or amputations they received. The true cause of death came from disease. These harsh conditions were contributed by unqualified doctors and non-sterile equipment. During the Civil War, the true issue was not only the wounds received in battle but the infectious diseases that ultimately led to the soldier’s death. When this was discovered, doctors knew some action needed to take place. Hospitals and sanitation standards were improved. The Civil War contributed to an evolution of medicine and how to combat victims plagued with disease.

On April 12, 1861 in Fort Sumter, SC Confederate troops fired the first shots of the Four Year American Civil War. After the first few battles were fought, both sides faced the realization of how they desperately needed doctors and nurses to care for the injured soldiers. (1) The first nurses were recuperating soldiers (rebel) however; their own illnesses prevented them from providing proper care or returning to full military duties. These soldiers resented being appointed hospital duty. (2)

During the Civil War, medicine was an important aspect for every soldier due to the fact that many soldiers had to fight and ended up with injuries also there were many types of illnesses. In this essay, I will focus on the advance of medicine during the Civil War. Also how the soldiers and civilians were treated as well as how sanitize their location was, are questions I will try to answer. Also, I will like to include some of most known causes of deaths during the Civil War and the types of diseases that soldiers would come in contact with. Include who was in charge of the hospitals during the war. I will also include information from letters and documents that the nurse and doctors wrote while the Civil War was going one and what kind of establishments were created and the kind of equipment they used in the hospital. Since the period of the Civil War was and is consider to be the start and growth of the medical industry it is important for me to find out why.

During the Civil War, they had to have many medicines, operations, and surgeries done to themselves or others in order to survive (Jenny Goellnitz, Paragraph 1). Some of these medicines we still use today. Medical technology and scientific knowledge have changed dramatically since the Civil War, but the basic principles of military health care remain the same. The deadliest thing that faced the Civil War soldier was disease. For every soldier who died in battle, two died from disease.

If you were a soldier in the Battle of Gettysburg do you think that you would’ve survived? The battle between the Union and the Confederacy lasted three days, from July 1, 1863 to July 3, 1863 and in the end the Union was victorious. The Battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. The medical knowledge and equipment that the surgeons had back then were no match the types of illnesses and injuries that the soldiers had. The people that were that got shot during the Civil War, either had to get a body part amputated, got their gunshot wound covered with a bandage, opened up the wound to get the bullet out and then patch them up. Three people from The Killer Angels that got shot and just got their wound wrapped with bandage were John Buford, Buster Kilrain, and a runaway slave.

The Civil War began because of uncompromising differences between free and slave states over the power of government, in April 12, 1861. Most people died in the Civil War because of deadly diseases. The Battle of Gettysburg is considered the most important event in the Civil War. Soldiers fought from July first to July third 1863. Do soldiers really know how to treat an injury during a war? In the book The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara’s published in 1974, we are exposed to historical figures that could have treated their injuries and made them minor if they had modern medicine. With the medical training we have today the figures could have saved their limbs and known how to take better care of themselves in such uncomfortable situations.

They didn’t know about germs or anything like that. All they knew was that people were getting sick and dying, about 2/3 of people died from disease (civilwar.org). They didn’t even keep hospital reports until later in the war. Probably the most important nurse in this time was Clara Barton, she was also known as an angel. For instance she was the founder of the American Red Cross in 1881. She was the one who also wanted to clean up the horrible, terrible mess of the hospital (civilwar.org). Example they started to clean themselves and their equipment more often. Also they cleaned up the limb pile, and they started to keep records of their patients’ and what they did to them. Lastly they started to give their patients’ clean bandages and they gave them more water. Giving them more water just helped them stay more hydrated thus making them heal faster. There were three categories of wounded soldiers. There was mortally wounded, slightly wounded, and surgical case (civilwar.org). For instance if they got hurt on the battlefield they wound be given whiskey to help sooth the pain. Well at least until they got to a hospital. The Union army could get to the hospital by horseback or train, while the Confederate army only had horseback. For the Union army there was about 10,000 doctors, while for the Confederate army there was about 4,000. They treated about 10,000,000 people during the civil war (pacivilwar150.com). Their assistants were the ones who gave them their equipment, and they were the ones who had the chloroform. One of the military hospitals were called Fairfax Seminary and it housed over 1,700 sick and wounded soldiers right when it opened

During any war, medical advancements are commonly made in response to the atrocities that take place during these bloody and gruesome times. World War II is no exception. During World War II, medical advances simply had to be made to keep soldiers alive. With all the victims of bullet wounds and diseases spreading around, treatments had to be invented or advanced. I chose this topic because science and medicine is very fascinating to me and I want to become a doctor when I grow up. During the war, penicillin, sulfanilamide, atabrine, plasma, and morphine were used in abundance and saved a countless number of lives.

The nineteenth century held one of the most medically appalling wars, as well as one of the most medically innovative wars. The Civil war is considered a terrible time period for medical equipment as well as surgeons. Many soldiers who had been fighting in the Civil War were killed by sicknesses including diarrhea and pneumonia. Surgeons, who had minimum medical experience, were taking care of the wounded soldiers at the time. The idea of sanitizing and sterilizing equipment that was used on a patient beforehand was not known by the inexperienced surgeons. Only a few years later came the Spanish-American war, which showed a vast improvement in the medical field. During the Spanish-American War many important inventions were created. These include the invention of the x-ray, the discovery of the germ theory, and the discovery of the antiseptic method. Both of these discoveries made it much easier for Surgeons to operate on the wounded soldiers. Another beneficial factor that made the Spanish-American War more medically advanced then the civil war was the service of female nurses. The Nurses provided a lot of help for the surgeons at times when there was a lot of work, and assistance was needed. It is clear that the medicinal techniques used during the Civil War were much less advanced than those used during the Spanish American War.

The Civil War was fought with much carnage, and was one of America’s most ‘uncivilized’, wars with a soldier’s chance of survival about twenty-five per cent. While many were killed by other soldiers, usually through bullets, a large portion died as a result of disease such as: dysentery, mumps, pneumonia, typhoid fever, measles, and tuberculosis, diseases that are curable today. These diseases were spread through the horribly sanitized camps found on both sides of the war: Confederate and Union. And while many died from disease, some died from other soldiers’ bullets; these deaths may have been prevented if the technology, or overall techniques used by surgeons, during this time period were more up-to-date, as amputations were the main procedure

Although most people would not object to the idea that diseases played some sort of role in the Civil War, few truly realize the extent of their influence. As it was stated previously, diseases affected the Northern soldiers and the Southern soldiers in different ways and to different extents. Those differences will be examined later in this paper. There are some issues relating to diseases, however, that affected soldiers in general, not particularly one side of the war. Those factors will be observed here.