The practice of medicine was transformed during the Civil War.
The Minie Ball made medicine deadly. This 56 caliber bullet made any field surgeon’s job over before it could begin. The bullet shattered bones and tore through muscles leaving amputation as the only choice. In fact, 3/4 out of all surgeries in the Civil War were amputations. At the Battle of Gettysburg, doctors created separate piles for the hundreds of legs and arms outside the makeshift field hospital. Aside from the size of the minie ball, it was also known for accuracy. This combination created large numbers of casualties in the conflict(“Civil War Medicine”).
The tactics didn’t help at all either. While advances in weaponry took place in the 1800s, advances in tactics did
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not, and would not, until near the end of the war. The Generals used methods going back to the Revolution of marching in formation and alternating fire between rows of soldiers. The advances in the minie ball changed the distance a weapon could fire accurately making the column obsolete. In addition, artillery advanced to the point where it shred marching armies exposed on open ground. As a result, casualties flooded the field hospitals(“Civil War Medicine”). The conditions in most field hospitals were notoriously filthy. Contrary to popular opinion, 75% of the soldiers receiving an amputation survived. However, water-borne diseases and intestinal disorders killed twice as many soldiers as bullets ever did. The large number of people in small areas created conditions that the viruses Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes were able to spread quickly. The problem was not a lack of knowledge about sterilization and cleanliness, it was the ability to stay sterile and have clean water for drinking, laundry, bandages, and sterilizing hands and instruments. Water, or the lack of clean water, was the main culprit. There just was not much clean water to be found. Also, Antibiotics and antiseptics did not exist yet. The Union Army reported that 99.5% of all Union soldiers contracted some sort of bowel disorder at one point during their enlistment. Despite the formation of the Sanitary Commission in 1861, the conditions failed to meet recommendations(“Civil War Medicine”). The medical establishments within the U.S. Army and the nascent Confederate Army were almost totally unprepared for either the scope or duration of the conflict. The peacetime U.S. Army possessed only 113 physicians to care for more than 16,000 personnel scattered across the country. The Army’s Surgeon General, Dr. Thomas Lawson, was unable to think beyond the needs of small, frontier post hospitals. Fortunately for the Union, the Medical Department entered a new era under a relatively junior physician, Dr. William A. Hammond, on April 25, 1862. The Confederate Medical department had to begin from scratch("Civil War Era Medicine”). Contrary to popular belief, nineteenth century military medicine was not always crude and ineffective. Lack of preparedness was the foremost problem, and it was responsible for much otherwise unnecessary suffering. The Civil War brought important advances in both organization and technique. While shortages often crippled the Confederacy’s efforts, by the end of the conflict the medical treatment available to Union soldiers was probably the best in the world. It gave sick and injured soldiers a greater opportunity of recovery than in any previous war("Civil War Era Medicine”). One of the war’s most important advances was the popularization of anesthesia. Military surgeons employed ether and chloroform, which had first come into use at the time of the Mexican War, 1846-1848. Both drugs had drawbacks. Highly flammable ether, which took sixteen minutes to take effect, posed a danger when operations were performed by candle or lantern light. Chloroform was nonflammable and worked in about nine minutes, but improper application could result in death. During those nine minutes the patient passed through an excitable stage and might need to be restrained. The process was poorly understood by laymen observers and led to the myth that many operations were performed without any anesthetic at all, which was rarely the case. Recovering patients received either morphine or opium, which were effective painkillers but addictive("Civil War Era Medicine”). Scientists, meanwhile, had yet to come up with the theory that germs cause diseases. Doctors didn't know that they should wash their hands before amputating limbs. As soldiers from small towns came together in large groups, they became newly exposed to pathogens that their bodies had never encountered before. But there were no antibiotics and no antiseptics(“How”). There was, for example, a growing sense that cleanliness reduced fatalities. Doctors who treated soldiers made leaps in understanding about neurology and other fields, and specialists continued their lines of research even after the war ended(“How”). A visionary surgeon named Jonathan Letterman forever altered the flow of medical treatment from battlefield to hospital, said George Wunderlich, executive director of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Md(“How”). Letterman, who as medical director for the Union Army created a well-organized system of care that began with triage close to the source of harm and was followed by rapid transportation to a series of clinics, hospitals and specialists. Even though technological advances have replaced horse and carriages with helicopters and jets, Wunderlich said, those kinds of protocols continue to be essential today(“How”). "There were definitely medical advances that came out of the Civil War that are benefiting soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan today," said Peter J. D'Onofrio, president of the Society of Civil War Surgeons, based in Ohio. "When I give talks, I say 'if you get nothing else out of tonight's talk, remember we can't look back at the surgeons of the Civil War and judge them in the context of today's medicine.'"(“Civil War helped”). Some of the advances were stumbled upon, Heiser said. For example, some hospitals that had washed bandages in hot soapy water, out of desperation to reuse them, noted their infection rates were lower than most and realized they had unwittingly been sanitizing bandages, Heiser said(“Civil War helped”). “You began to see greater numbers at medical schools and greater numbers of females going into nursing,” Caba said.
“This was really the first time that you began to see women respected for the medical care they offered. They were called angels of mercy. Fifty years later, at reunions, men would still be giving them three cheers(“Civil War helped”).”
At the time of the Civil War, there were only 600 trained nurses in the nation and all of them were Catholic nuns, D’Onofrio said. During the war, some 5,000 to 6,000 women came forward to serve as nurses for the North; records for the South were lost in a later fire in Richmond, he said(“Civil War helped”).
“Few of them were formally trained, but remember back then, women took care of the family when they were sick or injured so they had that experience,” he said.
All Americans, soldier or civilian, are benefiting from the medical services introduced during the Civil War, historians said(“Civil War helped”).
“We didn’t have ambulance services and emergency rooms in hospitals until well after the Civil War. Why not? The answer is because of the war,” Wunderlich said. “The Civil War changed the expectations of hundreds of thousands of men who went through a medical system that was changing, and they are ones who instigated these improvements in major cities across the country(“Civil War
helped”).” Work cited "Civil War Era Medicine - Community and Conflict." 2012. 23 Feb. 2016 http://www.ozarkscivilwar.org/themes/medicine. "Civil War helped shape today's medical practices | PennLive ..." 2012. 23 Feb. 2016 http://www.pennlive.com/bodyandmind/index.ssf/2012/11/civil_war_medical_procedure s_h.html. "Civil War Medicine: A Turning Point | The History Rat." 2012. 23 Feb. 2016 https://historyrat.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/civil-war-medicine/. "How the Civil War Changed Modern Medicine : Discovery ..." 2013. 23 Feb. 2016 http://news.discovery.com/history/us-history/civil-war-modern-medicine-110331.htm.
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
Furthermore, as war led to an increase in the number of injured men, there was a shortage of nurses, and women swarmed into medical universities to receive their educations so they could serve as nurses. In his “Universities, medical education, and women,” Watts states that when it was observed that women could “join the popular and increasing band of professional nurses. women were striving to gain university admission” (Watts 307).
The article was published on February 6, 1943 in the midst of World War II. Women had become an asset to the war effort and were then considered "At Home Soldiers" or "Riveters". They worked in the factories constructing submarines for the Navy, planes for the Air Force, and became medics.
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.
Clara Barton’s ‘The Women Who Went to the Field’ describes the work of women and the contribution they made on the civil war battlefield in 1861. Barton highlights the fact that when the American Civil War broke out women turned their attention to the conflict and played a key role throughout as nurses. Therefore, at first glance this poem could in fact be seen as a commemoration of the women who served in the American Civil War as its publications in newspapers and magazines in 1892 ensured that all Civil War veterans were honoured and remembered, including the women. However, when reading this poem from a feminist perspective it can be seen instead as a statement on the changing roles of women; gender roles became malleable as women had the
The Civil War had more deaths than all previous wars combined. Most people think those soldiers in the Civil War died of wounds or amputations, but the truth is that most died from common diseases that they never had been exposed to. Twice as many soldiers died from diseases than those soldiers who died in battle.
When first examining the documentation it is difficult to comprehend whether women were being patronized or treated too delicately; the fact of the matter is the average treatment of women during this era was radically different from society’s attitude toward men. It is also evident women exploited stereotypes to their advantage. Larry G. Eggleston explains the particular viewpoint of American society in Women of the Civil War as “Women were held with respect even though they were considered to be the weaker sex. Many women broke away from society’s traditional view of women when the Civil War began” (1). To avoid detection agents often manipulated social stigmas. Traditionally, Men were expected to join their countrymen upon the battlefield and women were to remain at home attempting to keep order. Some women were equally effective from their posts at home, while acting as scouts for their respected causes.
Georgeanna Woolsey: A Day in the Life of a Northern Nurse." Civil War Trust. Civil War Trust, n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2017. Women in the US Military - Civil War Era.
Subsequently, women volunteered through national or local associations or by getting permission from a commanding officer (“Nursing”). In April 1861, Dorothea Dix assembled a collection of volunteer female nurses which staged a march on Washington, demanding that the government distinguish their desire to assist the Union’s wounded soldiers. She organized military hospitals for the care of all sick and wounded soldiers, aiding the head surgeons by supplying nurses and considerable means for the ease and aid of the suffering. After she recruited nurses; nursing was greatly improved and her nurses were taken care of under her supervision (Buhler-Wilkerson). During the Civil war, most nurses were women who took care of the ill and injured soldiers. Both male and female nurses have cared for the soldiers in every American war. The majority of nurses were recruited soldiers pressed into duty. Civil war nurses worked in hospitals, on the battlefield, and in their homes (Post). The first carnage of the war made it possible for nursing to become a professional occupation. The women who proved themselves as capable volunteers established nursing as an acceptable field of employment for women after the war. The contributions of the thousands of female nurses helped to alter the image of the professional nurse and changed American nursing from a male-dominated to a largely female profession (Woodworth). Clara Barton, one of the nurses who contributed to the Civil War, founded the American Red Cross, brought supplies and helped the battlefronts before formal relief organizations could take shape to administer such shipments (Buhler-Wilkerson). The religious orders given responded to the new opportunity for servicing the injured by sending t...
In the book Women in the Civil War, by Mary Massey, the author tells about how American women had an impact on the Civil War. She mentioned quite a few famous and well-known women such as, Dorothea Dix and Clara Barton, who were nurses, and Pauline Cushman and Belle Boyd, who were spies. She also mentioned black abolitionists, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, feminist Susan B. Anthony, and many more women. Massey talks about how the concept of women changed as a result of the war. She informed the readers about the many accomplishments made by those women. Because of the war, women were able to achieve things, which caused for them to be viewed differently in the end as a result.
In the early years of the Civil War, it became clear that disease would be the greatest killer. Twice as many Civil War soldiers died of disease than those killed in combat. This was due to unsanitary and filthy conditions, untrained medical personnel and poor medical examination of new soldier’s. One fact from the Civil War was 315,000 soldiers died from illnesses that included: 44,558 from diarrhea/dysentery, 10,063 from malaria, 34,833 from typhoid, 958 from typhus and 436 from yellow fever. The sanitary conditions that a cured during the civil war were shocking.
Gerald. A. A. A Woman Doctor’s Civil War Esther Hill Hawks’ Diary.
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.
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...
The South contributed to the emergence of public health strategy in the United States by demonstrating the need for non-passive government presence in times of economic and social hardship. The South was able to have implement public health strategies during the Civil War, but their destitute state after the war proved difficult in maintaining successful public health strategies.