Edward was a soldier during the civil war who was hospitalized for two months because he got smallpox. Smallpox is a contagious disease which usually leaves permanent scars on the body. Saliva is a big factor in the spread of smallpox, usually is passed during coughs and sneezes. Before a soldier got smallpox they would usually get a fever or a headache. Other symptoms include severe back pain or the soldiers would just get very tired. Smallpox was cured during the Civil war by giving the ill small portions of food and all of their food was mixed with milk. It took 2-4 for the smallpox to bubbles from the body. The disease would give the body bubbles of puss all around. Because of the lack of education during the 1860’s the doctors took the pus from someone who was infected with smallpox and they would give it to people who didn't have pus coming out of their wounds.
Since during the civil war times the education about medical tools and medicine, the doctors would often use the same tools continuously on many of the wounded soldiers. This would spread the disease more than they already were. Also the soldiers were not so hygienic themselves, neither were the doctors. The soldiers would not shower daily and the doctors would not clean
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themselves after helping one wounded soldier. Germs were not very known at the time of the Civil War , therefor when it spread , many doctors did not know how to treat them. Another common disease was typhoid fever, it was the second most killing disease.
It had the nickname of “Camp Fever.” When several bacteria would mix, it would cause typhoid fever. Some of the symptoms were, high fever or intense headaches. Other symptoms were intense rash and delirium. Delirium is when your mind isn't in the right mindset and your words don't come out quite right. In order to cure this disease the doctors would give the patient analgesics which was a pain reliever and they would put the patient on a special diet. However other physicians would give patients medicine that gave poisoning from mercury. This happened because the physicians were not educated in medicine well enough to give the correct
ones. Dysentery was the number one killing disease during the Civil War. It would give severe diarrhea with mucus and blood. Dysentery was spread because of the lack of sanitation and because the soldiers would drink contaminated water. This disease would start because of bacteria. Some of the symptoms were high fever and chills, or weight loss. Nowadays people use antibiotics to cure Dysentery, but back then the doctors would just put the patient on a diet. The tools that the nurses used gave more harm to the patient, more than it helped them. The medicines that they gave the soldiers were filled with poison but no one knew what poison was. The only technology that helped the patients was, Chloroform. This was a medicine that was used to numb out the patient so when they were being treated they didn't feel much. Fun fact that Stonewall did not die because of his wound, but pneumonia quickly set inside of his lungs. Medicine was so uneducated back during the civil war times, that alcohol and gunpowder was used to cure a snake bite.
To make matters worse they had to deal with smallpox more dangerously than that is Lice because they rarely bathed or washed themselves or had laundered clothing. Another horrible things that Martin and his soldiers had to deal with was typhus a potential killer disease characterized by usually high fevers and red sports on the skin. Typhus took the lives of most of the Valley Forge Martin was under the brigade command of General James M. Varnum but his actual commander was Colonial John Durkee of the 4th Connecticut regiment, since Varnum was elsewhere. Washington’s continentals fairly well- supplied with food, but in the months preceding a major reason for so much privation at Valley Forge. Martin’s statement about Washington’s main army was misleading about them residing in the White Plains as they crossed the Hudson River and established winter quarters in Middlebrooks, New
A different perspective on a smallpox epidemic during the French and Indian War appears in Andrew J. Blackbird's History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan. Blackbird, Chief Mack-e-te-be-nessy, was a member of a distinguished Ottawa family from the northwest shore of the Michigan lower peninsula. He wrote his History late in life, after a long career in education, politics, and public service.
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.
It is also known as, "jail fever" or "ship fever," because it was so common among men held captive in such putrid surroundings. The disease was highly contagious and usually transmitted through human feces and lice that infested the unclean bodies of the Elizabethans.
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.
...men claimed to be sick each day and 36 percent (2,960 roughly) of the men died before the end of the war. With disease running rampid, weapons that obliterated soldiers, and defense systems to hold the men at bay, chances of survival during the Civil War were extremely limited.19
Because of frequent shortages of water, surgeons often go days without washing their hands or instruments. So now germs are passing from patient to patient. The Civil War was fought at the end of the Middle Ages; therefore the Medical Corps was unqualified in all fields of medical care. Little was known about what caused the disease, how to stop it from spreading, or how to cure it. Surgical techniques range from the toughest to the easiest.
Smallpox according to Feen took its toll on American’s as well as those of the colonist and British soldiers. One other item of interest I found in the introduction was the map of how the virus moved itself across North America. The virus from what I can see only need a host to travel. After closer examination you can see that they virus followed the routes of the soldiers or that of other militia as they made their way through parts of North America and Canada. Once it started there seemed to be no stopping i...
The 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Memphis proved to be fatal, killing almost all who got infected. The disease traveled up from New Orleans infecting and killing many on its way. Memphis was going through reconstruction and was becoming the center for merchants and travelers. Furthermore, Memphis began to become overly populated only increasing the devastation that would be caused by the yellow fever. This was a confusing period were even medical professionals did not know where the disease came from or how they could to stop it. The epidemic caused panic and challenged the state government of Tennessee and made changes to it that are still in effect today.
The Work of Death seemed inevitable to soldiers who embarked on the journey known as the Civil War. Throughout the Civil War, human beings learned how to prepare for death, imagine it, risk it, endure it, and seek to understand it. All the soldiers needed to be willing to die and needed to turn to the resources of their culture, codes of masculinity, patriotism, and religion to prepare themselves for the war ahead of them. Death individually touched soldiers with it’s presence and the fear of it, as death touched the soldiers it gave them a sense of who they really are and how they could change on their death bed.
The Cholera Epidemic of 1873 in the United States. 43d Cong. , 2d Sess. House. The.
In order to understand the history of smallpox one first has to understand how diseases like it evolve. Much like other species, diseases that survive in the long run are the microbes that most effectively reproduce and are able to find suitable places to live. For a microbe to effectively reproduce, it must "be defined mathematically as the number of new infected per each original patient." This number will largely depend on how long each victim is able to spread the virus to other victims (Diamond, 198).
It was spread by physical contact with human skin and mostly affected children and adults. This disease was so outrageous that led to a vast number of deaths in New England colonies. Also, smallpox virus transmitted through airborne from the oral, nasal mucus of the infected person. But mostly was spread from close contact or contaminated material of the infected person. It was spread very slowly and less broadly than other viral illness which took long time to identify the infection in first two weeks. Infection of smallpox started to grow between 7 to 10 days when the scabs form onto bruise. The signs and symptoms of this disease were with high fever, widespread rashes, redness, muscle pain, headache, common cold, vomiting, nausea and many more. Consequently, the virus was found in the bone marrow along with bloodstream in huge numbers. There were different types in between the smallpox disease with other classification. By preserving the virus, Boylston personally inoculated 247 people in 1721 and 1722 to prevent transmission. However, from there only six people died, and Boylston was the first American surgeon to inoculate his patients personally. The author portrays the background data Boylston used to examine the inoculation practice on different age and gender of persons to cure his patients were from previous experiments. The inoculation method provided higher rank of immunity in preventing smallpox infection. The prevention for smallpox was through inducing antibodies by vaccine which lasts longer for a person taken
During one of his earlier apprenticeships, Jenner noticed milkmaids with a disease called cowpox. Cowpox is a close relative to smallpox and is only mild in humans. Pustules appear on the hands and a basic cold is also brought on. At Jenner’s young age he was able to link these two viruses together and come up with a theory for immunization. In 1796, while still attending medical school, Jenner decided to test this theory between smallpox and cowpox. He used a dairymaid, who was a patient of his named Sarah Nelms, who had contracted cowpox and had ripe pustules on her hands. Jenner realized this was his opportunity to test someone who had not contracted smallpox yet. He picked an eight-year old boy named James Phipps to use as his test subject. He scraped open a spot of James' arm and rubbed in a dissected piece of Sarah Nelms pustule into the open wound. A couple days later James became ill with cowpox but was well again within a week. This test proved that cowpox could be spread between humans as well as cows. Jenner's next test would be if the cowpox virus gave James immunity against smallpox. On July 1st of 1796, Edward Jenner obtained an infected smallpox pustule and scratched the virus filled pus into James' arm. This technique of placing a virus into a patient is called variolation. James Phipps did not develop smallpox within the