Medicine During The Civil War Essay

During the Civil War, many new weapons and submarines have been improved in order to be more efficient in the war and the telegraph was invented to command troops. It also improved the production of medicine and created many, more safer, surgical techniques. The end of slavery was also an outcome of this war, through the thirteenth amendment and the emancipation proclamation. Today would never be the way it is, if this war did not

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

The Civil War caused great leaps and bounds in technology. not only for guns and cannons but medical support and transport. we had to advances in weapons transportation and medicine. Life wouldn't be the same without these advances.

One of the main types of advances in the Civil War was the advances in machinery. One example of a type of machinery that made a huge impact was the submarine. There was a lot of time and hard work put in to develope and deploy submarines on both sides of the war. Records kept about submarines are hard to come by because in fact, they were partially illegal. Therefore, almost all of the submarine

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.

Some of the main diseases were smallpox and dysentery. Smallpox was a large epidemic that greatly affected the war. In fact, the British even used smallpox as a weapon. They sent out an infected soldier with the intention of bringing the epidemic to the American lines. Everybody knew how much of a problem this would be, but unfortunately they could not do anything about it. So, when these attacks came, there was really no defense unlike other kinds of attack. The war made smallpox much more widespread with people constantly come and going to new places, and constant contact. Because not a lot could really be done about the diseases yet, hospitals were merely used to confine the ill, not treat them. Majority of the time, anyone affected by an illness was left mostly defenseless. All they could really do was confine them, and hope nobody else was infected because of that person. The outbreak of all these diseases led to a desperate search for a quick fix to this large

The Civil War has been described as one of the most important occurrences in the life of the United States. It was period in time when the United States was no longer united, but instead was split between the north and south due to the ongoing feud over of the legal standing of slavery nationwide. For four years, many people were subjected to horrific measures, especially the soldiers that participated in combat. Despite the brutality of battle, soldiers experienced a numerous amount of daily hardships that made their stint in the war almost intolerable. Being far away from their homes and loved ones, having access only to inadequate food and shelter, gaining an increased risk for diseases, barely living through harsh winters, enduring

World War One caused unprecedented death, pain, and suffering. The war didn’t just end lives, it also created many medical advances and breakthroughs. During World War One many new and important improvements in health brought forth advancements in medical science. These include blood transfusions and the storage of blood. Blood transfusions gave new blood from healthy soldiers to wounded and sick soldiers.

Nurses faced great danger in hospitals because they were a breeding ground for disease. They were extremely over crowded, especially after a large battle, and because of these conditions, illnesses were spread very easily. Typhoid, malaria, and dysentery were the biggest diseases. Typhoid was the worst. One of the poorer facilities was named the “Hurly Burly House.” The patients here were enlisted men. Better quarters were reserved for sick and wounded officers. Most of the hospitals had bad ventilation, no provisions for bathing, and no dead house. Some of them had decaying wood and old carpets that were not removed. Kitchens and washrooms were described as “cold, damp, dirty, and full of vile odors from wounds.” The nurses quarters were not much better. Nurses would often work from 6am to 1am. These miserable accommodations combined with overworked and under qualified staff made hospital conditions adverse to patient welfare and therefore unsuitable for either dispensing or receiving treatment. The Sanitary Commission finally investigated and recommended

At the beginning of the war, most people believed it would only last a few weeks or a couple months, at the most. Because of this, not much money was used for hiring surgeons or doctors. This being said, most surgeons didn’t truly have a formal education in the medical field. Because of this, they didn’t really know what bacteria was, much less what it could do, which is why they were ignorant as to what caused illnesses and diseases. Most surgeons that tended to the wounded during the Civil War had also never dealt with a gun shot wound or executed a surgical operation, which brought about the fact that they weren’t truly certified at all. Most of them would usually only have 2 years of education, with only work out of a book during the first year, and the year after that would usually just be the same thing

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).

If the Civil War could be described in only one word, that one word would be tragedy. Such a bloody time for everyone alive in what is now know as The United States of America. The Civil War took pace in the years of 1861-1865 there were multiple reasons as to why the Civil War broke out but the number one reason for the Civl War was, the diverse opinions on the issue of slavery. Slavery was such a horrific thing going on at this time in history, but not all people who owned slaves treated them terribly, some slave owners were very sympathetic and helpful to their slaves. The Southerners were known as the Confederacy and stood for pro slavery and the Northerners were known as the Union and were anti slavery which caused a rather large amount of strife and conflict. Roughly around 620,000 soldiers died during the Civil War, in fact two times as many soldiers that fought in the Civil War died because of diseases taking over their body, the percentage of death from those killed actually fighting in combat was little compared to amount of deaths that were spurred on by several diseases. There were so many cases of wounded soldiers during the Civil War, “There were more than 6,000,000 reported cases of diseases and another 500,000 men who suffered from battle wounds, accidents, or injuries.” (Worthen & Higby, 12) Many people blamed the deaths on the lack of experience from doctors or surgeons, as they were called during the Civil War, but the diseases were the main reason for

World War Two, a harsh period of time in the 1930s-1940s, filled with controversial arguments, political battles, fights to the death, but most importantly, medical advancements. Did you know that without the research and discoveries made during World War Two, our medical programs would probably be lacking the information we have today? It’s very true, and in my opinion, the war strengthened our medical abilities, and it really put our world to the test. New medicine had been discovered, while old medicine had been improved; horrible medical experiments performed by the Nazis occurred during this time; but most importantly, World War Two has affected our medical programs that we have presently. These

Like it is in any war, there is often the competition for making sure that either sides comes up with better and more effective ways of defeating the opponent. This often leads to new inventions of doing different things so as to increase the efficiency with which they are able to perform different functions. The civil war was no different as it leads to different inventions that were aimed at making either side to be able to win the war. These innovations lasted long after the war and their effects could be seen in the development of modern technology for the civilian use. Among the most evident included the following.