Medicine During Civil War

The Civil War came at a time when there were very few developments in medicine and wound and ailment diagnosis. Even some of the most basic life-saving techniques at that time, such as CPR, had not been learned or developed. While medicines and techniques were in their infancy to treat wounds, the weapons of war were progressing, as was their ability to wreak havoc on the human body. Severe infections have also been widespread, hampering care and healing. Because the soldier's overall living climate, like field hospitals and dressing stations, was unsanitary, disease also ran rampant. When it came to the death of soldiers of the Civil War, the infection was twice as likely to be the culprit as the war wound.

At the beginning of the war, fortunate camps and hospitals were founded to treat the wounded. These hospitals are usually for this purpose warehouses, churches, barns, or other structures. These were often insufficiently big and designed to suit the injureds’ needs. However, these camps and hurriedly built hospitals were often chaotic and disorganized. The use of these centers and hospitals changed as the war continued and became more and more organized. Field stations were a first stop for the wounded, located near war. Here the wounded soldiers, usually whisky, provided some sort of pain aid. Therefore, this is where there was any initial bandaging. Soldiers who needed further treatment were taken to hospitals on the surface. Such hospitals developed a triage system that separated the soldiers by need. The three types of need are those in need of treatment, mortal wounds, and wounded soldiers who did not need surgery and were not seriously wounded. Instead soldiers in need of more or longer treatment were sent to bigger, general hospitals set up in some of the big cities.

During the Civil War, treatment of injured and sick troops underwent many improvements. To cart soldiers to hospitals, the creation of an organized ambulance corps was created. Trains from hospitals have also been widely used to carry troops to general hospitals. For one time, these could carry large numbers of injured people, making good use of the budding train system. Steamers also used to take troops to hospitals for treatment, known as sanitary steamers.

Despite some progress in hospitals, sanitation remained an issue, particularly in field dressing stations and field hospitals. Physicians had no knowledge of germs and bacteria or how disease was transmitted. Sometimes, surgeons treated one patient after another without using gloves or adequate hand or equipment washing. Instrument sterilization did not occur, and it was often with soiled surgical aprons, soiled fabric, or even the filthy boot belt of the surgeon as instruments were cleaned clean. Thick and sticky blood, known as laudable pus, were misunderstood as a good sign of healing from wounds and was not recognized as a sign of infection. It could be found on surgical aprons, bedding, and even floors along with blood and other body fluids. In the field hospitals, even after surgery, soldiers who sought care sometimes stayed within their dirty uniforms. Poor sanitation also contributed to disease in terms of recovery, which at the time was a significant hurdle for wounded soldiers. Besides infection, poor sanitation among the troops was also commonly the cause of disease.

In 1846, just 15 years before the Civil War, the first history of using anesthesia was made. In surgeries such as amputations, anesthesia was used up to 90 percent of the time. Chloroform and ether were the two most common types of anesthesia. During Civil War surgeries, chloroform was used about 75 percent of the time. By applying it to a cloth and draping it over the nose and mouth until unconsciousness it was often given to the patient. This was regarded as an open fall technique. Ether was an alcohol and sulfuric acid mixture and during the war was a popular anesthetic. Sometimes during their surgery, patients were not completely unconscious. We still didn't feel the pain when this happened, but were aware of what was going on.

During the Civil War, new types of ammunition, such as the Minie ball, produced wounds that had never been seen in past wars. The scale of this slug's destruction was huge, as it would not only break the bone at impact, but also kill three inches around the impact. Owing to the extreme damage, surgeons frequently felt the best way to save a life quickly was to remove a leg. Therefore, in the high number of amputations that took place, gangrene also played a major role. Over the course of the war, an estimated 50,000 amputations were made, leaving many soldiers without arms, legs or feet. At the start of the war, many of the doctors were unfamiliar with conducting amputations and were inexperienced. This was quickly changed by the sheer number of amputations, and doctors were doing several regular surgeries early. There were two surgical procedures and methods used when an amputation was performed. The circular approach was the most effective strategy in terms of speed and convenience. This approach allowed the surgeon to slice through the limb right and even in dim lighting could be achieved. While the amputated site was left open by this process, the method of fish-mouth flap did not. The surgeon used this method to make a skin flap that looked like a fish's mouth and used it to cover the amputation spot.

There were a number of medications that were frequently used in the treatment of Civil War soldiers. Such medications have been used to treat disease, infection, and pain. Dover's Powder was an example of a pain relief drug. This was an ipecac and morphine combination. In addition, during the Civil War, opium had many uses, as it was used not only to treat pain, but also to treat severe diarrhea, pneumonia, and bronchitis. At the time, Quinine, another common medicine, was used to treat certain deadly diseases like malaria. Calomel, used in dysentery therapy, was a powdered medication that contained mercury and was held in paper pouches. As noted earlier, alcohol was also used as a pain-relieving drug in the form of whisky and was carried by medical staff.