The Role Of Medicine During The Civil War

Medicine Throughout the middle of the eighteen hundreds, the United States was divided between the North and South because they strongly disagreed on many topics. The main topic they disagreed on was slavery. This disagreement led up to the Civil War. The Civil War resulted sixty-two hundred thousand deaths. Two thirds of those deaths were due to disease. Unfortunately, there was no medicine that existed during the time to cure these diseases. Some of the diseases were dysentery, typhoid fever, smallpox, malaria, and tuberculosis. Dysentery was the worst disease during this time, killing over ninety-five thousand people. During the Civil War, there was no medicine to fight against the illnesses that were spreading among the soldiers . One
With that being said, water supply was disgusting. However, there was limited water so these soldiers continued to use it. The air was rather dirty as well. With the water issue, soldiers did not bathe; therefore the air reeked of blood, manure, and other odors. This caused the soldiers to become very ill. Hospitals were unsanitary. With the heavy number of wounded and ill soldiers, hospitals found it difficult to sanitize the instruments between surgeries. This caused injuries and disease to become worse. However, Clara Barton would be able to change a lot of these problems. Born on December 21, 1821, Barton would soon become the 'Angel of the Battlefield.' Barton was a great help to the Union during the Civil War, as she found any way to help soldiers who suffered at this
Plastic surgery was used when someone was in terrible physical condition. For example, if someone had been terribly hurt in the facial area, plastic surgery was used to make this area look better than it was. Anesthesia was most effective during the war however. This is because many soldiers came into hospitals needing amputation or serious work on bones in the body. To ensure that the soldiers would not feel pain during this surgery, anesthesia was used successfully. Still today anesthesia is used during surgery. The technology in hospitals didn't exist to treat the diseases and injuries during the Civil War. At the end of the war, Union came on top with the victory over the Confederates. In the end, sixty-two hundred thousand soldiers died. The Union had roughly over two million soldiers serve in the Civil War. Of those, just under three-hundred fifty thousand men died fighting for their rights. The Confederates also lost many men during the war. Over one million men served and just under three-hundred thousand men died. Many of these deaths occurred from diseases that were unable to be cured during the