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).
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.
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.
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.
Favor, Lesli J. Women Doctors and Nurses of the Civil War. New York: Rosen Pub. Group, 2004. Print.
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.
The variety of dental instruments that have been invented since the beginning of basic dentistry till modern times is enormous. Dentistry has been around since the Ancient Egyptians, the firsts known dentist was Hesy-Re, who has inscribed on one of his tomb walls “the greatest of those who deal with teeth”. Onward from Hesy-Re, the focus on dental health became a concern, however, it was not till about the end of the 1700’s that dentistry was regarded as true profession. Dentistry during the American Civil War was not the initial interest of the time, the focus was of course on the injured men who would come off the battle field. When one thinks of Civil War medicine they may tend to think of amputations and treating bullet wounds. However,
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.
Diseases did not only affect the soldiers in a tremendous way. As I will discuss in greater detail further in this paper, diseases gave an advantage to the Northern side of the war, and this played a role in their victory. Additionally, the treatments and discoveries that were made as diseases were treated led to spillover effects that have changed certain aspects of our lives today, providing advances in the realm of medicine. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how diseases played a larger role in the Civil War than is generally known. Diseases did not affect the soldiers fighting for the Northern side and the Southern side in an equal fashion. In contrast, the Confederate soldiers were hindered much more deeply than the Union soldiers. This gave an advantage to the Union side.
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.
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.
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.