Civil War Medicine

When people picture the Civil War amputations, they often picture piles of limps stacked around a battlefield and a surgeon as a butcher. However, this picture is not true to the real nature of battlefield medicine. Amputation was the most common surgery throughout the Civil War. The Civil War leads to advancement in amputation and quality of life for those who had amputation. Artificial limbs also came into the picture helping former soldiers lead a better quality life.

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.

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

One of the first nurses to see battle injuries was Ms. Fannie Beers who described the arrival of the first 200 soldiers at a makeshift hospital “they came with some form of disease whether on foot or stretcher, barefoot or on swollen feet”. (12) The battlefront hospitals were only that of open area sites with conditions anything but sanitary, with blood, human waste and amputated limbs covering the ground. The first battle women encountered was with their selves. Only their strong religious faith steeled them against sickening sights of disease and infection. These nurses learned to rein in their feelings and believed patients redemption hallowed their work.

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.

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

Many injuries in the civil war were taken place on horseback. One of these devastating injuries affected John Reynolds. “ He was out in the open, waving his hat, pointing to a grove of trees. A moment later…. Reynolds lay in the dirt road…. He was dead.” ( Shaara p. 96) Injuries such as these in the civil war were lucky if they were treated in time. Sometimes, soldiers would have to wait at least a day or more till a doctor can treat them.

A lot of the doctors during the Civil War did not have good education on how to train for their soldiers. Doctors also did not understand how the diseases spread to everyone. Washing their hands or cleaning their medical tools wasn't a thing for them. Civil War soldiers were actually not happy if they got wounded. The last place any soldier wanted to end up was in a Civil War field hospital.

Surgeons worked very hard and once the Civil War was over (likely) or the army thought it was time for a soldier to leave the war (less likely) they were discharged. By the time the civil war ended more than 12,000 surgeons had served. In all, more than 174,000 wounds were presented in field hospitals around the US. Of these, 30,000 resulted in amputations by a surgeon. Surgeons were completely necessary for the success of either side (though the North won the war) to succeed in the war.

Medicine played a big role in the Civil War, it took care of the conflicts with the soldiers, infectious diseases, and if surgery was needed. Amputations was a big surgery if any soldier got shot or if anyone had a deadly disease. There were diseases that were fatal, common, or rare. Doctors in this time were always trying to improve their medical tools and technology.

At the start of the Civil War, the way hospitals were organized and took care of their patients was disastrous in every single aspect of its supposedly “well-thought out” system. To be fair, the shelling of Fort Sumter caught both parties involved quite unprepared for the catastrophic number of casualties to occur. No military leader or general surgeon had planned for such a large-scale conflict. Even in times when the war seemed to “lull” in its rhythmic pace, the Medical Department was greatly understaffed and overworked. Only 114 doctors served the 16,000 men serving in the U.S. Army in 1861, mostly in garrison hospitals. After battles, surgeons set up hospitals near the battlefield to care for patients until they had recovered sufficiently enough to

Though when the other surgeons decided there was no point in treating chest wounds, But Mr. Howard experimented with a new life-saving procedure. At the onset of the war a sucking chest wound was almost certainly a death sentence. Among French soldiers shot in the chest during the Crimean War (1853–1856) only about 8 percent survived from that. The problem was as Mr. Howard came to realize that it wasn’t the wound itself but the sucking. The negative pressure in the thorax was created by the opening in the chest cavity. The effect would often caused the lungs to collapse, leading to suffocation causing a lot of

The old battlefield technique of trying to save limbs with doses of TLC and wound-cleaning rats and maggots quickly fell out of favor during the Civil War. There were too many soldiers getting wounded, and war surgeons quickly discovered that the most efficient way to stop deadly infections was amputate them. Amputation saved more lives than any other wartime medical procedure. War surgeons lost only about 25 percent of their patients—compared to a 75 percent mortality rate among similarly injured civilians at the time.

Even through the Civil War was very bloody and gruesome, there were some positive effects on America’s medicine. This may include medicine in the pharmacy, performing surgerys, and Prosthetics. During the war the most injuries were resulting in amputation because soldiers were shot by “Minie Ball” bullets which would shatter bones and limbs.(pbs.com) Anesthesia was commonly used during surgeries. The top two types of Anesthesia was Chloroform and Ether.

During the civil war, approximately 620,000 soldiers died however many deaths were not associated directly to battle but linked to disease and medical practices during the time. Approximately two thirds of all deaths during the civil war was due to diseases running rampant and the lack of proper surgical equipment that resulted with diseases being able to further spread during the war. Four diseases that soldiers were susceptible to get during the civil war were typhoid-fever, smallpox, tuberculous, and dysentery were the diseases running rampant due to filthy camps, spoiled food and poorly prepared food.