Gangrene Research Paper

Words: 1132
Pages: 5

Gangrene is a brutal, debilitating disease that has plagued the world since ancient times. The term gangrene, as defined by the Cambridge Historical Dictionary of Disease, describes local death or necrosis of tissues in the living body and is characterized by the inability of epidermal cells to repair the infected portion. If left untreated, gangrene can cause extreme physical and emotional damage to a patient, leading to debridement, amputation or in extreme cases, death.
The two main types of gangrene include dry and wet. Dry gangrene is caused by insufficient blood flow to a specific area of the body, usually toes or fingers but could affect entire limbs. Wet gangrene is the bacterial infection of dead tissues causing putrefaction. The two main causative agents of wet gangrene are Streptococcus and Staphylococcus (Schonbech).
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Gangrene that was present during this time was likely a result of trauma infections (“Gangrene”, The Cambridge Historical Dictionary). The most notable historical dominance of this disease occurred during the pre-antiseptic. Hospital gangrene, now known as a form of necrotizing fasciitis, became a major cause of death among soldiers after the introduction of gunpowder in Europe (“Gangrene”, The Cambridge Historical Dictionary). Soldiers were frequently injured throughout major historical conflicts (e.g. the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War and the American Civil War) and without proper sterile technique, gangrene could steal the limbs and lives of many. By the time the first world war had begun, doctors and surgeons had perfected the art of amputation along with setting fractured limbs. By the late 19th century, the work of Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister had changed the playing field dramatically. In fact, “the introduction of penicillin in the early 1940s totally eradicated hospital gangrene” (“Gangrene”, The Cambridge Historical