Medicine During The Civil War Essay

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During the Civil War, there were many surgeries performed. Some of which were amputations. As you sift through this project, you will realize that medicine and the practice of medicine was very different during the Civil War compared to today. There were not careful procedures to make sure everything was sanitized, there were not clean and peaceful hospitals, and there certainly was not careful consideration of how to treat a patient/soldier.

First of all, the doctors had very little training. To get a medical degree, you had to go to medical school for two years. When you had a medical degree, you were completely qualified to operate on soldiers. Today, generally, you have to complete at least 8 years of college then, after this you have to complete 3-8 years of surgical residency. Then you will (most likely) get a medical degree. This is six times what you would have to complete during the …show more content…
The United States had a mindset of war over medicine, during the time. Surgeons, nurses, and doctors never wore surgical gloves, they never even washed their hands. Their surgical kits were almost never properly cleaned and open latrines, unclean water, and decomposing food were often present at field hospitals. All of this uncleanliness lead to many, many infections, which resulted in amputations.

Lastly, the topic of amputations. During the civil war, over 174,000 soldiers were brought into field hospitals with extremity wounds (arms and legs). Of these soldiers, over 30,000 resulted in amputations! Many of these amputations were unnecessary, the surgeons just didn’t know any better. You could have a limb amputated because of gunshot, infections, fractured or broken bones, or other injuries. After an amputation, many complications could arise, like infection, phantom limb syndrome, PTSD, etc. The doctors that performed amputations saved many lives, but also ruined

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