Clairice Drexler Dr. Herman Mrs. Sharnick Sophomore Symposium First Draft Before WWI, the practice of medicine was far from how it has developed into today. The practice was not advanced, and therefore, had few concrete methods. However, with the beginning of the First World War, there was a great push to improve these methods. Although the war caused much illness and death, it also catalyzed many improvements such as blood transfusions, x-rays, vaccines, and sanitation. Although blood transfusions had been used before the First World War, many were not successful due to lack of knowledge in this type of treatments. World War I pushed the development of blood transfusions, allowing them to be safer. Before the war in the 17th century, blood transfusions often occurred with the use of animal blood, a practice that did not achieve desired results. These transfusions often times came from sheep, and although they were sometimes successful, it was discovered that any large amounts of transfusions would cause death. Coming to the conclusion that animal blood transfusions did not save lives, scientists looked to humans for human to human transfusions. Many of these attempted transfusions were met with failure but in 1818, Dr. James Blundell accomplished the first successful human blood transfusion; four ounces of blood were transferred to the patient from her husband. From that moment on, doctors began to learn even more about blood transfusions and how to do them properly. By 1901, the four human blood groups were discovered by Karl Landsteiner; with less differences in the bloods transfused together, coagulation and clumping amounts decreased. This benefited many lives in that toxic reactions to the wrong types of blood did not occu... ... middle of paper ... ...l as salt could keep wounds clean,and although the process would still be painful, that pain was insignificant compared to pain while in surgery; operations in hospitals were often carried out while the patient remained conscious. When dealing with wounds, in the opinion of insert name here, inflamed wounds should never be closed, but rather dressed with gauze and a varnish, to allow for movement, but also provide support. Infected tissue was drained, while extremely infected tissue was cut off the body completely. Because of the lack of knowledge about many ailments, many advances in hospitals were completed. Anesthetics were developed, as well as clinics for rehabilitation and new knowledge was gained on the matter of reconstructive surgery. As a result of scurvy, soldiers frequently required reconstructive bone and joint surgery, just to be able to walk again.
Medicine has developed so dramatically over the last century that it is difficult to imagine a world in which its many benefits did not exist. Even as humans manage to eradicate some diseases, a look at history reminds us that there was a time when these and other diseases were rampant, and good health was the exception rather than the norm. There are many comparable time periods that medicine was needed and was used. With each, there were drastic changes to medical procedures and medical rules. Of the many different time periods that medicine was used; the comparison of medical care during the American Civil War and medical care during World War I is the most interesting. How did Civil War battlefield medicine compare with World War I battlefield medicine? That's a question that cannot be simply answered, but can be broken down into the overall sanitation of individuals, medical techniques, and overall medical staff for armies.
Medicine has been developed and discovered for thousands of years; however, the 1920’s was the first decade that fashioned a pathway for new developments and discoveries. Medical professionals have taken a huge hit for their fight in finding new inventions that can save patients from death’s hands. In the 1920’s, medicine has also taken a tremendous leap in controlling fatal diseases such as diabetes (Pendergast 110). Medicine in the 1920’s has altered the way medicine is shaped today; furthermore, the development and discovery of the iron lung, penicillin, and insulin were the first pertinent breakthroughs in medical history (“Iron” par. 7; Grimsley par. 15; “Banting” par. 13).
In 1914, with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife from Austro-Hungarian Empire caused an enormous war called World War I, that killed and injured about thirty million lives. It also destroyed the economy later on. World War I changed combat tactics in a whole new way, where people would die in a blink of an eye. Commanders and soldiers did not know about the capabilities of their new arsenals. The new industrialized developed weapons devastated the battlefield with blood, mountain of corpses, and small craters. Some of the weapons that were used were machine guns, poison gas, mortars, and tanks. Soldiers described the battlefield as a nightmare. This was the start of a new era arising through warfare. A very dangerous way to bring great change to the world but was not intended. World War I brought great changes to the world but, considering the countless deaths, it was the worst war ever, an inhumane war.
Resection was a process that “involved cutting open the limb, sawing out the damaged bone, and then closing the incision” (Jones, 1). Resection allows the patient to keep his limbs but it requires a great ordeal of time and skill. This also contributed to the common practice of amputation during the war. But there were cases where surgeons did use this method. Terry J. Jones said in his NY Times article, “resections were used more frequently after surgeons learned that amputations had a much higher mortality rate” (Jones, 1). In another article by Corydon Ireland, it describes Mitchell Adam’s, a Harvard lecturer, grandfather who served as a volunteer surgeon during the Civil War. In the article, “Adams was not a champion of hasty amputations, but argued for excision and other limb-saving measures. And he describes the everyday pressures of a country practice in Framingham, Mass” (Ireland, 1). This meant that not all surgeons at the time only wanted to amputate but strived for alternate methods. This new knowledge shows that some surgeons were more dedicated to thinking about the well-being of their patients than others and this opens up to other possibilities that may have occurred during the war. This allows an image to come to mind of a surgeon diligently operating on a soldier with care and compassion. However, even though there may be many possibilities, we can’t truly know every event that occurs during a
Medical procedures and inventions are constantly being developed and made better. World War 1 was a time in which many of the procedures used today were first thought of and used. It was a time that inspired the doctors and nurses working today, not to mention the fact that it’s a topic that still affects everyone in the world today. Medical advancements made during World War 1 had a major impact on the world as evidenced by those advancements still in use today.
Most of these medical advances were a result and were an influence of World War I. Probably one of the most important medical advances was the discovery of penicillin in 1928 by a Scottish, microbiologist named Alexander Fleming, he had actually accidently discovered it, when he noticed that a bacteria culture he had been growing, had stopped, he realized that it had been contaminated by a rare form of mold called Penicillin and that it had killed the bacteria.
Advancements in technology and science contributed to one the most gory and bloodiest war in the annals of human existence. These new technological advancements revolutionized how people regarded war. War was no longer where the opposite forces fought in a coordinated battle. War evolved into game of cunning strategy where the side with the bigger, powerful, and smarter toys played better. This led to a fierce competition where each side tried to create the smarter machines and better weapons, leading to deadly mass killing weapons in the process. One weapon or machine was created and an even better one was made. New developments such as machine guns, poison gas, tanks, and new strategy to thwart trench warfare affected how WWI was fought and it came with catastrophic results.
While the stories of the Civil War are often dominated by those of courageous soldiers and their harsh conditions, often the history of those serving the soldiers is forgotten. While medical staff had been prominent in armies for hundreds of years, the American Civil War brought a new era of medical treatment and personnel to the world and future of warfare. Mass amputations and an almost organized chaos characterized both the Confederate and Union medical staffs. Out of the hundreds of thousands of deaths, more than half were caused by disease, rather than combat injuries. Unsanitary conditions and food with poor nutrients took the lives of many soldiers, with many other soldiers dying before they could reach a treatment center. Many surgeons
Some of the advancements made had a direct effect on those at home particularly children and mothers. The inspection of refugees and conscripts exposed poor health habits that led to advancements to improve health nutrition and control conditions such as scabies. Nurses roles also became more critical during war time. In July 4th, 1943 nurses were required to also have special military training. This included not only additional training in flied sanitation psychiatry and anesthetic, but also physical conditioning to build endurance. They also reviewed training in how to set up field medical
The idea and concept behind this project is to identify the unknown blood types of the synthetic samples. Synthetic blood is used for blood transfusions and is important because if someone was given the incompatible blood type, you could become very sick and possibly die. Blood transfusions are very helpful for saving lives but negative outcomes will occur if the blood is not compatible. This background research paper will discuss different blood types and the importance of blood transfusions.
World War I is known as a war that occurred on extremely cruel terms; there were not many restrictions on what and when certain weapons could be used. Unfortunately, the Industrial Age brought with it many new ways to kill; the soldiers of World War I came in contact with many new weapons that they had never seen in combat.
The First World War was expected to be short, with a quick triumph on either side. On the contrary, the war caused a giant massacre to all the countries involved, and lasted for four years. Also against the expectations of political leaders and military commanders new techniques of fighting were used, as well as new weapons (for example the chloric gas, tanks and aircrafts). Due to all this, 13 million people were killed, of which 2 million were Germans, 1.75 million Russians, 1.5 million Frenchmen, 1 million British and 0.5 million Italians. But death was just one of the worst consequences of the First World War.
English physician William Harvey studied the hearts and blood of dogs and other animals. In 1628, he discovered and fully described the properties and circulation of blood. The discovery of circulation was an important prerequisite to blood transfusions from one animal to the same or different species. Shortly after the discovery, the first known blood transfusions took place. Many of the first blood transfusions, in animals and in humans, were unsuccessful and were fatal in humans. The first recorded successful blood transfusion took place in England in 1665. Physician Richard Lower bled a dog almost to death, then revived the dog by transfusing blood from another dog through a tied artery. Jean-Baptiste Denis, a physician to King Louis XIV, performed the transfusion of blood from an animal to a human in 1667. The blood of a sheep was transfused to a 15 year old boy, who survived the transfusion. In 1818, British obstetrician, James Blundell, successfully transfused human blood to a patient that had suffered from severe postpartum hemorrhaging. Of course, not every transfusion was a success. There were several deaths that resulted from failed transfusions. Physicians could not make sense of why the blood from one donor could keep one patient alive and be fatal to
There wasn’t much progress for centuries till World War I. Many soldiers were coming back home with severe injuries on their bodies. Since there were more and more people in need of these surgeries, reconstructive surgery started to develop even further. They came up with new techniques such as trying to rebuild entire limbs, ...
Plasma was considered as the most important part of human blood, which carries out most of the function in relation to transport. Fluids is the major constituent of plasma, with an estimated total protein concentration of about 7.0-7.5 g/dl, as the solid component in plasma, that contain a complex mixture of different proteins which are mainly glycoprotein and lipoproteins. The concentration of plasma protein is largely occupied by Albumin, which is about 3.4-4.7 g/dl as the major protein; this protein will be discourse in further details, (Murray et al 2003). Plasma protein plays a role as biomarkers in diagnosing human diseases, due to their functions as dynamic interface for molecular transport in the body even though, their determination is very difficult because it contain almost 3700 different proteins as found in the literature, (Manley and Gailer, 2009). It was well known from early research, (Himmelhoch, et al, 1966) that plasma protein contain a minute amount of metals, and different technique were used to determine distribution, which will explained in more details. These metals are essential for many function in relation to good health of a living organism, 15 trace element found in plasma were considered of great importance in this aspect which includes but not limited to: Fe, Zn, Cu, Se, Co, I, K, Na, Mg, Mn, Ca, as reported by (Muniz, et al 2013). However, among these trace element Cu and Zn where considered as the most important of all the trace elements in coordinating health activities and were found to bound one metal per protein. The distribution of these metals was found to be high in Plasma Albumin with a concentration of 36.1-53.6 ...