Medical Differences Between The Civil War And Spanish American War

For decades, America has fought in many different wars with the need of health assistance for their soldiers. The American Red Cross is a worldwide organization that helped during the times of war but also provided a path for scientific advancements. Through the American Red Cross and other organizations of this time, they opened up the doors for women to take the chance to advance in the medical field by participating in scientific experiments and being at the aide of wounded soldiers. During this time of scrutiny, the Great War was a hidden opportunity for the encroachment of medical research with the contribution to the expansion of nursing.

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

In June 1861 the federal government made "a preventive service for the benefit of the army" called the U.S. Sanitary Commission. Their objective was to combat preventable diseases and infections. They improved conditions and worked and provided relief to the sick (“Women in the Civil War”). The risk of illness was scarier than getting injured. Since it was before antibiotics, twice as many people died (Silvey 73).

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

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.

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, all of the nurses were expected to take on more responsibility. Due to the nurses lack of education that the nurses received, nurses would have to learn from their mistakes each day. Some of these mistakes were nurses giving the wrong medicine. Prior to the war, "Women’s experiences in nursing typically occurred in home settings, rather than in hospitals. Therefore, the nursing care provided was more intuitive than formal" (Egenes). Nursing was a lot more laid back during in the Civil War than it is now. Before the Civil War started, most patients got help from un trained nurses (“Nursing In America”). Each day "As the volunteer nurses learned from their experiences, they gradually embarked upon creative behaviors that were within the boundaries of established norms of medical practice of the time"(“Nursing in America”). This meant that almost

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,

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

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.

Medical care was as scarce as clean water. Basic medical care was rudimentary. Describing the situations as “incredibly unhygienic” would be an understatement. War fatalities were the immediate effects of the Great War and the incredible spread of a disease was a later one. As a matter of fact, more people died from the Great Influenza Pandemic than from World War One (Tauenberger1).