Advancements of Med-Care
George Wunderlich once stated, “The American Civil War often gets credit for ending slavery and reshaping the federal government in this country. But the war between the states has another, often overlooked legacy: It may have started a new era in modern medicine” (brainyquote). Contamination of medical equipment, poor sanitation methods, and lack of efficient medical procedures all led to the spread of disease, which resulted in death. However, modern medicine has significantly improved from the Civil War, due to its horrendous medical practices. The Civil War had countless impacts on the nation, but its most significant impacts were the advances in medical equipment, procedures and sanitation.
Among diseases and injuries, sanitation was one of the leading causes of death during the war. When the Civil War began, the United States was not medically prepared for the war and the excessive amount of deaths that occurred. Michael Rhode, an archivist at the National Museum of Health of Health and Medicine said, “Medically, the United States was woefully prepared when the Civil War began in the spring of 1861” (Sohn). With the United States not being prepared for war, doctors and surgeons were able to realize the advances they needed to make in the medical field, mainly in the sanitation systems. During the Civil War, standardized medical schools did not exist. Because doctors did not receive the proper education, they had no idea how many diseases were spread, and therefor used contaminated medical equipment while operating on a patient. Not only did medical officials use contaminated equipment, they also performed surgeries on medical tables that were covered in viruses and diseases from blood from differ...
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...e operate today. Ben Carson said, “The Civil War impacted medicine in countless ways but its most significant is how it impacted our take on medical procedures” (eHistory). The most important procedure that medical officials gained from the Civil War, were amputations. The techniques that doctors used during the war, are still used today. Two examples of techniques we still use today are, cutting as far away from the heart as possible, and never slicing through joints. Although, we still use some of the same techniques today, the medical procedures used now are more sophisticated and have a lower mortality rate. The procedure for an amputation now takes more than two doctors and takes about an hour to perform. Instead, of doctors just hacking off the dead limb, they now use a circular motion to make sure they don’t directly cut through any important veins. (FINISH).
Most people in the beginning of the war; thought it was only going to last a few weeks or months, so not much effort was put into recruiting doctors or surgeons. Even so, surgeons really didn’t have formal training in medicine. They did not know much about bacteriology and were ignorant of what caused diseases. Most Civil War surgeons also had never treated a gun shot wound or performed surgery, which led to the fact that they were not qualified at all. They would usually have 2 years of schooling, with only bookwork in the first year, and the second year would usually just be a repeat. However, doctors tried the best they could at treating the wounded and injured, and knowledge of medicine improved a little bit more each year.
Where did our current medial technology and equipment develop from? From the gruesome Civil War, many of the base models to our current medical proceeders were produced. During the Civil War, brother verses brother were fighting against 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 time, many lifesaving procedures were born through it. Because of the high medical need during the American Civil War, necessary advances such as medical inventions, lifesaving procedures,
In the early 1900’s the United States’ medical field was stagnant causing many deaths in wartime. The majority of deaths in war times were often caused by diseases that were incurable. The United States medical field had to grow to current needs in war but it grew very slowly. The United States Army Ambulance Service was established on June 23, 1917 and the Sanitary Corps established one week later on the 30th. (David Steinert). The Sanitary Corps quickly expanded to nearly 3,000 officers during World War I but, this field was still much smaller than any other
The Civil War was a bad experience for the country, but there were many improvements in weaponry during this era. Some improvements like the Henry rifle was one of the first lever action breech loading rifles. This allowed quicker reloading of the gun. Other than the Henry rifle, soldiers started using pre loaded brass shells which were also a big improvement compared to hand reloading like with the musket. Not only were guns being improved, they also made upgrades in cannons and not so much in bayonets. Because of the use of all these new weapons, the war was much bloodier than previous wars.
The sanitary conditions that a cured during the civil war was shocking. Unsanitary hospitals and camps kept the wounded soldiers in large groups, which were ideal places for infection, fevers and disease to spread. Soldiers were not immune to childhood diseases like the measles and small pox.
United States. Surgeon-General's, Office, J. K. Barnes, J. M. Woodworth, E. McClellan, J. C. Peters, J. S. Billings, President United States, and Service United States. Public Health. The Cholera Epidemic of 1873 in the United States. 43d Cong., 2d Sess. House. Ex. Doc. 95. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1875.
With advances in weaponry came an increase in deaths and major limb injuries. During WWI the primary action was to amputate the limb rather than try and salvage it. This was due to the little time nurses, surgeons and anaesthetists had with each patient in the field hospitals, because they were overrun by more than double their expected capacity. There-fore, surgeons had to choose which critical patients to treat first, resulting in 41,000 ampu-tees during the First World War, all in need of artificial limbs (Pensions, 1939).
During the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861-1865, over 620,000 accounted soldiers were killed. Known as the "the first modern war", historians generally agree that the reason for this was because this was a time of transition for the military. Armies and Navies were still using tactics where they would gather large forces of firepower to bear on the enemy. At the same time, weapons were being developed which were accurate and lethal well beyond any arms of the earlier conflicts. As a result of these two conditions many more casualties were sustained. Add to that the lack of medical knowledge of disease and infection and the numbers truly began to grow. This paper is an overview of the types of weaponry that was used during this time.
In the 18th century, the medical field was made up of mostly men. There were three jobs in this field: Physicians, Surgeons, and Apothecaries. Physicians were the most elite of the three. Physicians in the 18th century had no knowledge of anything. Nobody knew that disease was spread by bacteria, germs, and viruses. Because they didn’t know this, nobody practiced sterilization or hygiene, hospital and personal.
... soldiers were attacked by diseases called dysentery, smallpox and typhus. Doctors soon realized that these diseases could be contained or less spread by improving sanitation. This was the time when vaccinations were discovered to treat smallpox and became mandatory in the U.S. Another sanitation change that was introduced was the use of proper footwear and clothing for soldiers. By 1814 the army had raised its sanitations standards helping to stop the spread in these common diseases.
"Science Museum. Brought to Life: Exploring the History of Medicine." Medicine in the War Zone. Accessed January 12, 2014. http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/themes/war/warzone.aspx.
The US health care system was primarily built around treating acute illness and injuries,the predominant health challenges of the early 20th century a...
During the Civil War they really worked towards building more hospitals and it drove the nursing profession to grow and have a large demand for nurses, but they were more like volunteers, such as wives or mistresses who were following their soldier men. Being a war nursing at that time was seen as a job for the lower class and no “respectable” woman could be seen in a military hospital. During the Civil War Phoebe Levy Pember, a young widow, went north to the confederate capital of Richmond. She eventually ran the world’s largest hospital, where on an average day she would supervise the treatment of 15,000 patients who were cared for by nearly 300 slave women. The war then led to a greater respect for nurses which was noticed by Congress. They then passed a bill providing pensions to Civil War nurses, but more importantly this led to the profe...
On the first day of class, we discussed how modernization has brought the institution of medicine so far. Although the cost of modernization is seen as the "social germ", modernization has also brought enormous improvement in health. Modern medicine defies all ancient reason. In primitive societies the division of labor was vague, no real specializing in anything, but over years of experimentation and development, the establishment of medicine was born. We now have overflowing systems of specialization and technological advancements, but this did not happen overnight.
During the early 1900’s there was a deadly disease outbreak that had no cure. They called it “white death.” The scientific term was tuberculosis. The disease was terribly contagious and had claimed several lives so far. In 1900 Louisville, Kentucky had one of the highest death rates from this horrible disease. Due to the high numbers of people that were infected with this disease, the state of Kentucky built a special hospital that would specialize in the treatment of tuberculosis. The hospital was small and not enough rooms to house all the people were becoming ill. Eventually a bigger hospital was built. It was a state of the art hospital for our time. Big enough to hold and treat 400 patients. It also had housing for nurses, doctors and staff on the grounds. Not enough was known about this disease, except that it was very contagious. Anyone that came in contact with someone that was ill had to be isolated and treated. So far the only treatments that did seem to show minimal results were nutritional food, sunlight and fresh air.