Crimean War Essay
Assess the influence of the Crimean war on the development of modern medicine and triage
Introduction
As medical historian Fielding Garrison said, “Of all recorded wars, the Crimean has perhaps the greatest teaching value for military medicine”. Historically, early historians of medicine were reluctant to study military medicine due to fears of endorsing militarism and therefore were focused on the public and mental health sectors. This only changed with the integration of military medical practices into civilian life, ceasing the divide between war and the rest of society and culture. The Crimean War was pivotal in both the environments and practices to develop the success of modern day medicine and triage.
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Alongside with his investigations into the causes and treatment of cholera, Pirogov’s influence has established a sound foundation for modern medicine to develop into the level of care we enjoy today. Although chloroform had been used as an anaesthetic since the 1830’s it was highly controversial due to risks involving excessive blood loss and death due to it’s depressive nature. Pirogov emphasised the vast positive implications of using anaesthetic in trauma cases. It was Pirogov’s belief that the administration of anaesthetic on arrival to the hospital kept the patient calm, henceforth delaying the onset of shock whilst allowing the surgeon to make a more balanced choice in which patient to attend to first and which could wait . According to Dr Marina Soroka, Pirogov blamed many deaths and complications on the chaotic accumulation of the wounded on the dressing tables. To prevent this he introduced the idea of immediate triage of the wounded to allow them to be distributed among the wards. This new organizational system allowed for the systematic and efficient provision of qualified surgical help by reducing the efforts and resources of doctors and nurses, always in short supply for those who need them in wartime. As triage requires considerable paramedical personnel close to the line of …show more content…
As a conservative Christian society, Britain was often reluctant to embrace new improvements and rather relied on traditional methods, which often proved detrimental. Although the Crimean War is often hailed as an example of bad organisation, it can actually be perceived as an example of great adaptations and flexibility within the medical corps. Britain was fighting a war far from home with little sanitary, medical and transport services. Their archaic approach to fighting one of the first modern wars was instrumental in their failures throughout the war. According to Jack Edward McCallum in his book Military Medicine: From Ancient Times to the 21st Century, British military surgeons regularly failed to accept well-documented improvements in their science, and the men whom they cared for payed the price. As a result of its abysmal performance in the Crimean war, the British medical service was entirely reformed in the subsequent decade. Such improvements included the use of anaesthesia in field surgery, especially the use of chloroform, which had been regularly used in surgery since the 1830’s, and the deployment of medical nurses to the field. Richard A Gabriel argues that the Russians use of ether as an anaesthetic in field surgery was a pivotal moment in military medicine, pioneering beyond the British who were slow to adopt this practice due to their conservative
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.
During this war, around 21,000 British soldiers died - however, only 2,755 were killed in action, and 2,000 because of battlefield injuries. Over 16,000 British soldiers died due to diseases such as typhus, typhoid, cholera, and dysentery. During this war a lot of hospital patients had to lie on the floor – as there weren’t enough beds. Also, soldiers who had infected limbs had to have them amputated with a saw – and a lot of the time these limbs were given to the military dogs as food. Two significant people to this war were Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. Florence Nightingale became a nurse in 1853 - only a year before the Crimean war had begun. After a statement that there weren't enough medical facilities for the war, the war minister of the time - Sidney Herbert - asked Florence to help improve the medical work in the military hospitals. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/nightingale_florence.shtml BBC, History, Florence Nightingale) She was the first person to focus on cleanliness and hygiene in hospitals, and also invented the pie chart. After the war, she was able to
The shock of amputation sparked fear into thousands of civil war soldiers. Before the gilded age, patients resented surgery due to the pain associated with it. The main anesthesthetics that were used were hashish, Mandrake, alcohol, and opium. Surgery before the gilded age consisted of speed to lessen pain but it created hostile and often cruel conditions for the patient.
The logic and principles of medieval medicine shaped those of Modern medicine. Never was there a more efficient method perfected, so much that it remained through history through so many hundreds of years. Today’s concepts of diagnosis, relationships with the church, anatomy, surgery, hospitals and training, and public health were established in the Middle Ages.
During the war, many patients died from blood loss while waiting for treatment or during surgery. This
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, 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.
If there’s war then there’s soldiers who are going to get wounded. Medicine as a whole wasn’t too good during that time and that made people think of
As the Civil War began in 1861, in regards to the state of medicine at the time, Surgeon General William Hammond claimed that it was "the end of the medical Middle Ages." (Floyd) A bold
There was limited supply of medical equipment as a result they were using saws, scalpels, and knives to operate surgery in the field. It was long ago before the introduction of sterility of medical instrument and so the instrument became bridge of contamination of disease between soldiers. “Recalled on surgeon; ‘we operated in old blood-stained coats with infected hand” (Oates, 362). It was a head of discovery of antibiotic, wounds and scars could easily develop to infection and therefore limited their survival. Doctors and nurses were limited in number as well their distribution center around the battle. Soldiers were wounded so badly and doctors knew nothing except to devise amputations. They did all they can to alleviate the pain of the wounds by amputation but they were too surpassed by patients. There were no ambulances to carry victims to the medical centers nor had the doctors to see every patient with special
During any war, medical advancements are commonly made in response to the atrocities that take place during these bloody and gruesome times. World War II is no exception. During World War II, medical advances simply had to be made to keep soldiers alive. With all the victims of bullet wounds and diseases spreading around, treatments had to be invented or advanced. I chose this topic because science and medicine is very fascinating to me and I want to become a doctor when I grow up. During the war, penicillin, sulfanilamide, atabrine, plasma, and morphine were used in abundance and saved a countless number of lives.
When Walt Whitman wrote that he believed the “real war” would never get into the books, this is the side he was talking about (Belferman 1996). Yet, it is important that we remember and recall the medical side of the conflict too, as horrible and terrifying as it was (Adams 1952). Long before doctors and people knew anything about bacteria and what caused disease was the time of Civil War medicine. Doctors during the Civil War (always referred to as “surgeons”) were incredibly unprepared. Most surgeons had as little as two years of medical school because very few pursued further education. At that time, Harvard Medical School did not even own a single stethoscope or
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
Military medicine has a rich and long history. The medical and health care delivery lessons gained through multiple wars fought in the past decades are applied to improve the care for military personnel and their families. It continually evolves and adapts to the current mandates of the government.