Anesthesia During The 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

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.

During the Civil War the only major problem second to getting shot in the face, was a shot to the chest. At the time doctors did not really understand how to treat a wound of that type, and usually the major issue was the negative pressure exerted outwards, leading to the collapse of the lungs and soon after, suffocation. Contributing to this problem, the doctors observed that during their war, the french had an 8 percent survival rate from major damage to the chest, leading to many medical practitioners to simply refuse treating chest wounds. Early into the war, however, soldiers would be blessed with the miracle of knowledge, knowledge of how to close chest wounds. Benjamin Howard, a young assistant surgeon, otherwise known as a cub surgeon,

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.

With many soldiers dying from disease on the battlefield, the help of medical advances decreased the mortality rate of all soldiers on both sides. Before the medical advances of the Civil War, many soldiers died from wounds and diseases on the battlefield. In fact, for every soldier that died on the battlefield, two soldiers would die of disease. These diseases included some that appeared on the Oregon Trail and the expansion out West, such as dysentery, diarrhea, typhoid, and the dreaded malaria.

The medicine in Civil War was just becoming extremely primitive. Surgeons, doctors, etc never understood that there could be infections and they did very little to prevent these infections from happening. Dover’s Powder was a mixture of ipecac and opium and was not only used to treat pain but also treat severe diarrhea, pneumonia, and bronchitis. Quinine was to treat common deadly diseases and was another common drug at the time that was used to cure diseases such as malaria. Calomel. Hospitals were generally warehouses, churches, barns, or other buildings, but were rarely cleaned at all. The disease that were the soldiers greatest enemy were, Dysentery, Measles, Smallpox, Pneumonia, and

Exposure turned a mild head cold into pneumonia and worsened other conditions. Pneumonia was third ranking on the long list of killer diseases, after typhoid and dysentery. The diet of the Civil War soldier was somewhere between barely palatable to absolutely awful (Adams 1952). “It was estimated that 995 of 1,000 Union troops eventually contracted chronic dysentery” (Adams 1861-1865). Given the atrocious conditions, doctors tried many different cures. To put an end to the common dysentery (which was one of the main worries of soldiers) a plug of opium was given. A mixture of mercury and chalk, which was called “blue mass” by surgeons, was used to treat closed bowels. Respiratory problems, such as pneumonia and bronchitis were treated with a dose of opium or sometimes quinine and “muster plasters” (Schildt 1986). Bleeding, an age old process which included cutting the main arteries and veins open length wise to rid the body of supposed “bad blood,” was also used. Malaria could be treated with quinine, or sometimes even turpentine if quinine was not available. Whiskey and other forms of alcohol were also used to treat wounds and disease, mainly to relieve some pain although not nearly all of it. “The medicines brought in to try and halt diseases were manufactured in the north for the most part; the southerners had to deal with running the Union blockade” (Coco 1995). The medicines the South used were usually smuggled in although they south had some medicine

This allows the soldiers to apply pressure without having someone else to assist them. The tourniquets could only be used on wounds that occur on the arms or legs. Fibrin bandages are now used to decrease the loss of blood and the number of deaths. The treatment for a damaged limb at times, for some soldiers, was to amputate at an earlier time because it could later result in a good outcome. Anesthesia was created to prevent a lot of people from suffering pain during the operation. Military and civilian anesthesiology has connections in the treatment of trauma for critical care medicine. A vaccine was created to prevent Smallpox, it helps your body develop an immunity towards

Amputations were very common during the civil war because there were no antibiotics and infection was very common. Many things could result in amputations including gunshot wounds, infections, multiple breaks in a bone, injury, etc. Chloroform was used to sedate patients before surgery for an amputation. Most amputees would not go back into battle. Over 75% of the amputees survived surgery, which was a lot considering that medical knowledge wasn’t that advanced since America had a mindset of war over medicine, at the time. Also, since there were so many amputations and almost all of the surgeons could do them, doctors were nicknamed “sawbones”.

During the Civil War, medicine was not at all advanced and many soldiers died due to this. Whether the soldiers were fighting for the Union or the Confederacy, they faced many difficulties on the battlefield that affected their health greatly. The conditions were rough and there were never enough medical personnel to properly treat the injured or ill soldiers. Even though there were many flaws in this system, it is from these flaws that current medical practices were established by a few important people at this time.

The Civil War began on April 12, 1861 and ended on May 9, 1865, throughout those four years many men lost their lives. Operations during the war played a big role in the mortality rate of soldiers due to the fact that many physicians were not properly trained. “Of the approximately 30,000 amputations performed in the Civil War there was a 26.3-percent mortality rate” (Burns, n.d). At the time, becoming a doctor was no problem; one was expected to only take a few courses at a proprietary medical college and to have had some sort of training with a local physician (Burns, n.d). Many physicians had little to no surgical experience and had never performed a major operation, even dissections (Burns, n.d).

One good thing that resulted from the Civil War was the rise of knowledge and use of modern anesthesia. This anesthesia came in two forms, chloroform and ether. Those patients that anesthesia was used on had a higher survival rate than those where it was not available. Before the war, alcoholic drinks, opioids and bite blocks were used to keep a patient controlled during surgery. These options did not completely eliminate pain causing stress and trauma. At the time of the Civil War, it was considered cowardly to undergo surgery using anesthetic. Anesthesia was usually used for women and children. Use of anesthesia did not go without risk. Surgeons had to practice to figure out adequate dosages which took a period of trial and error sometimes resulting in overdose and death. Although uncivilized at times, medical care during the Civil War helped bring on a new age of modern medicine.