The American Civil War was a gruesome war. Brother against brother fighting with one another. Over five hundred men lost their lives fighting in one of the nations biggest, bloodiest battles. Obviously, the leading factor in deaths during the Civil War was wounded soldiers. Limbs were being shattered and wounds were becoming infected and spreading through out the body. Even though the Civil War was a gruesome battle, many lifesaving procedures were born. Because of the high medical need during the American Civil War, necessary advances such as medical inventions, lifesaving procedures; and reconstructive surgery established the foundation for our current medical methods Innovations of the Civil War included things such as medical inventions …show more content…
Ambulances were further developed from the base model which already existed. The ambulance’s main purpose was to speedily take injured soldiers from the battlefield to the medicine and doctors in order to receive appropriate care. Jonathan Lettermen created the ambulance that was used for the Civil War; this ambulance could carry three injured people at a time along with all the supplies necessary. This ambulance was not the ideal ambulance, but worked for the occasion. The ride was extremely bumpy and unstable, but they accomplished their job of taking people from the battlefield to the hospital area. Incredibly, during the Civil War there was multiple “trains” of ambulances, each train consisted of forty ambulances, and there was always forty ambulances on call at a time (Frederick). They were stocked with supplies and stretchers for those unable to get in unaccompanied. The Ambulances were exceptionally helpful during the Civil War, the battle of Antietam was considered the bloodiest day of the Civil War. There were over twenty three thousand casualties during the Antietam War, and in twenty four hours the ambulance corps had all the dead men off the field. At the end of the war, the ambulance was widely recognized as a large lifesaver (Oshinsky …show more content…
Amputations were nothing new, but became increasingly popular during the Civil War. Before the Civil War people would receive infections in their injured limbs causing death. The book Eyewitnesses to the Civil War stated, “The grisly procedure of amputation became emblematic of the Civil War medicine because it was often the only option for saving a wounded soldiers life.” (344) Daniel Sickles was one of the first people during the Civil War to receive and amputation. His right leg was shattered by a bomb, and he was rushed to the doctors. From the time the bomb hit him to the time his leg was amputated was a total of one hour! Amputations became popular during the Civil War because of the large amount of injured limbs. After preforming so many amputations, Civil War surgeons were able to complete an amputation in just fifteen minutes,(Eyewitness to the Civil War 342) and luckily, patients were now given chloroform pain killer through the inhaler. In his book Gangrene and Glory Frank Freemon stated: “Surgery was quick, bloody, and brutal… Taking the knife in his [Surgeon] bloody hands he called out ‘Next’. Another solider was lifted and placed, not too gently on the operating table” (Freemon 109) Amputations were life savers, because without amputations a wounded limb would become infected and spread throughout the body causing infection and leading to
In all my years of medicine, being a surgeon in the middle of a Civil War, wasn’t fun. I had more than five men bleeding their lives out and in agonizing pain. What can one surgeon do with only forceps, a cutting saw, and bandages ? Not much and to think, these soldiers still kept fighting and killing one another, so really… how barbaric can these bloody angels get? It was 1863, the South wanted to keep slavery alive, whereas the North wanted to abolish it.
At the time, medicine in both countries (truthfully worldwide) was still very primitive. There were surgeons who were part of the military, and medics were very sought after. There was little they could do to help, however. According to the Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, “the great majority of wounds and of sickness should be treated by the regimental surgeon,” (Sherman 393). The treatment given back then to a wound from a gunshot wound was amputation without anesthesia- as it would not be invented yet for about a century- and after surgery, doctors did not wash their hands or instruments, exponentially increasing the likelihood of infection of a wound and lowering the likelihood of survival. The Union had an advantage in this, though not due to superior doctors or medicine. The Union had roughly four and a half times as many citizens as the
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.
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.
Let’s go way back, all the way to 1861, the beginning of the Civil War. The Civil War was a battle between the Confederacy (south) and the Union (north). This was a battle to end slavery in the south. There were about 1,264,000 soldiers that died, and about 644,000 people were injured. As you may know, our medical field has drastically improved over the years since then. But back at that time, there wasn’t a lot that was yet to be known. As the Civil War progressed in its dreadful ways and occurrence of common wounds, that would be the main topic that will be addressed. Now sit back and relax, as we take a trip back to the past of battlefield medicine during the Civil War.
A Rifle could shoot a bullet up to 1,000 yards–and were more accurate. However, until the 1850s it was nearly impossible to use these guns in battle because, since a rifle’s bullet had roughly the same diameter as its barrel, they took too long to load. (Soldiers sometimes had to pound the bullet into the barrel with a mallet.)
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
How were injured soldiers treated during the circus war? How does our medical treatments now compare to how they were treated before? Did the way injured soldiers were treated have to do with the cause of their death? Wounds were treated very differently to how they’re treated now and it always makes people wonder how people still survived and were able to live longer. It all reflects on technology, transportation, antiseptic practices, and surgical techniques. Throughout war and history more soldiers died from diseases than they did from injuries and often the medical treatments they would get for their injuries wouldn’t make them better but worse and it was what caused more deaths.
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.
Many soldiers who survived their infection and an amputation wanted artificial limb. Although artificial limps have been made since the 1500s, the Civil War caused a great demand for artificial limps. In some cases, veterans could stand again with proper artificial limbs and other times with a cane also. This caused the industry of artificial limps to advance greatly. Artificial limbs were very important, because the demand for agriculture had skyrocketed, since leaving for war. Artificial limbs arms did not offer much purpose, however it made a missing limp less noticeable in public. Artificial limbs were high in demand and it was offered in some states like North Carolina. Expect for artificial arms because, they were seen as less needed then any other limbs. However, artificial limbs were considered to be greatly uncomfortable making
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
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
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.
Following the Civil War, a second industrial revolution in America brought many changes to the nation’s agriculture sector. The new technologies that were created transformed how farmers worked and the way in which the sector functioned. Agriculture expanded and became more industrial. Meanwhile government policies, or lack of them for a while, and hard economic conditions put difficult strains on farmers and their occupation. These changes in technology, economic conditions, and government policy from 1865 to 1900 transformed and improved agriculture while leaving farmers in hardship.
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.