What Is The Role Of Health In The American Revolution

The diseases that most affected the soldiers,while they were fighting for a cause in the trenches were,Trench Foot,The Trench Influenza and Shell Shock.

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.

Only 2,898 out of 12,000 soldiers fell ill during December of 1777 but the numbers rose when the new year came. By February 1778 there were only 8,000 soldiers left and the illness count rose to 3,989. That is over 1,000 more soldiers sick in less than a month! I do not have as strong an immune system as some people so I feel as if I would get sick from being around all the infected soldiers. Between December 1777 and June 1778 according to Document A 1,800 to 2,500 soldiers died. That is a lot of

Many physicians and caregivers were very hard to find, especially with proper training. In the barracks, the military was contained in a closed space, had poor hygiene, and all of these components led to the spread of disease and infection (Health and Medicine in Revolutionary America, n.d.). As reported by Dosespot, when living the life of a soldier in the American Revolution, you had a higher chance of dying in a hospital than in the battlefield. According to statistics, there was a 75% percent chance that you would survive treatment from a wound or illness if you seek treatment in a hospital. Though, there was a 98% chance that you live through a battle.

One poor condition that the continental army faced was the unbearable sickness. For instance Dr. Albigence Waldo states, “I am sick - discontented - and out of humour.” (Dr. Albigence Waldo, 1777). This shows that, from where they have started the living conditions have not improved. Dr. Albigence Waldo also writes, “Poor food - hard lodging - cold weather - fatigue - Nasty cloaths - nasty Cookery - Vomit half my time - smoak’d out my senses... ”(Dr. Albigence Waldo, 1777) This statement describes the terrible food, the sickness, the ripped clothes, and the terrible environment. Furthermore, Dr. Albigence Waldo records, “Heartily wish myself at home, my skin and eyes are almost spoil’d with continual smoke.”(Dr. Albigence Waldo, 1777) Particularly, this shows the quality of ventilation that the soldiers are bearing with. These living conditions have shown, that the congress can’t support them and give the army enough money for food or clothes at the very

Rather than being killed in war, most of the deaths on the American side occurred because of malaria, yellow fever, and typhoid.

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

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

A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier: Some of the Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin is a great work of literature detailing the accounts of Joseph Plumb Martin throughout the Revolutionary War. Martin enlisted in the Rebel Army when he was just sixteen years old in 1776. Martin wrote of all his escapades forty-six years after he enlisted. Martin was a private in the Continental Army. Most stories of the Revolutionary War from a patriot viewpoint describes the Revolutionary Army as glamorous and superb.

It has been said by many scholars that the true victor of the First World War was disease and illness. Statistics show that over one third of military related deaths were caused by a disease/illness of some sort. To put that in more of a numerical visual, there were about ten million casualties in the span of World War I, this is excluding civilians, only military personnel. Of that ten million, about two million deaths were caused by disease/illness (Nadège Mougel, 2009). This number could me more, but about six million soldiers were reported as missing, or presumed dead.

When both countries were fighting against each other there were more threats to come diseases are only just one of them . Both countries had terrible illnesses, including yellow fever , melinaea , smallpox etc. This meant that 1000s of soldiers did not even stand a chance of fighting to show the love they had in their country , because in the 1800 medicine was in its infancy .

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).

Infection assumed a basic part in the death toll on the Eastern Front. In the East, malady represented roughly four circumstances the measure of passings brought on by direct battle, rather than the three to one proportion in the West. Jungle fever, cholera, and looseness of the bowels added to the epidemiological emergency on the Eastern Front; be that as it may, typhoid spotted fever, transmitted by pathogenic lice and already obscure to German medicinal officers before the flare-up of the war, was the most dangerous. There was an immediate relationship between's the ecological states of the East and the pervasiveness of ailment. With urban areas too much swarmed by exiles escaping their local nations, unsanitary therapeutic conditions made