Outcome of Medical Advances During the Civil War

Caitlin Franco

U.S. History

11/3/16

 Outcome of Medical Advances During the Civil War

        During the the time of The Civil War, doctors had yet to develop bacteriology and were generally ignorant of the causes of disease. Generally, Civil War doctors underwent two years of medical school, though some actually pursued further education. Medicine in the United States was woefully behind Europe. Even one of the most prestigious schools, Harvard Medical School, did not even own a single stethoscope or microscope until post Civil War. Most Civil War surgeons had never treated a gunshot wound and many had yet to perform a single surgery. Yet, for the most part, the Civil War doctor, Dr. Clement A. Finley (as understaffed, under qualified, and under-supplied as he was) did the best any doctor could with what he had, muddling through the so-called "medical middle ages."

 In regards to to the comparison of medical staff during the war about 10,000 surgeons served in the Union army and about 4,000 served in the Confederate. Medicine made significant gains during the course of the war. Although, during april of 1861 (the start of the war) Dr. Samuel D., a surgeon from philadelphia, published a manual for military surgery, helping the north tremendously. Soon enough the confederates stole a copy and was given to surgeons in the south. However, it was the tragedy of the era that medical knowledge of the 1860s had not yet encompassed the use of sterile dressings, antiseptic surgery, and the recognition of the importance of sanitation and hygiene. As a result, thousands died from diseases such as typhoid or dysentery.

The deadliest thing that faced the Civil War soldiers was disease. For every soldier who died in battle, two died of disease. In particular, intestinal complaints such as dysentery and diarrhea claimed many lives. In fact, shockingly diarrhea and dysentery alone claimed more men than did battle wounds. The Civil War soldier also faced outbreaks of measles, smallpox, malaria, pneumonia, or camp itch. Soldiers were exposed to malaria when camping in damp areas which were conducive to breeding mosquitos, while camp itch was caused by insects or a skin disease. Many unqualified recruits entered the Army and diseases cruelly weeded out those who should have been excluded by physical exams. There was no knowledge of the causes of disease, simply due to the time period of medicine. Troops from rural areas were crowded together for the first time with large numbers of other individuals and got diseases they had no immunity to, annual shots to prevent such diseases/sicknesses weren’t invented at the time. Neglect of camp hygiene was a common problem as well. Ignorance of camp sanitation and scanty knowledge about how disease was carried led to a sort of "trial and error" system. In Surgeon Charles Tripler report on sanitation, an inspector who visited the camps of one Federal Army found that they were, "littered with refuse, food, and other rubbish, sometimes in an offensive state of decomposition; slops deposited in pits within the camp limits or thrown out of broadcast; heaps of manure and offal close to the camp”. On may 16th four New York representatives of the newly formed United States Sanitary Commission met with the acting surgeon-general, Dr. Robert Wood. Wood refused to allow any formal relationship between the army and the Sanitary Commission. Coming June 9th the U.S. Sanitary Commission is approved by Federal Secretary of War Simon Cameron, who appoints nine men to serve as the first USSC commissioners. Mary Livermore, a nurse, wrote that... "The object of the Sanitary Commission was to do what the Government could not. The Government undertook, of course, to provide all that was necessary for the soldier, ...but, from the very nature of things, this was not possible... The methods of the commission were so elastic, and so arranged to meet every emergency, that it was able to make provision for any need, seeking always to supplement, and never to supplant, the Government.". Exposure turned a common cold into a case of pneumonia, and complicated other ailments. Pneumonia was the third leading killer disease of the war, after typhoid and dysentery. Lack of shoes and proper clothing further complicated the problem, especially in the Confederacy. The diet of the Civil War soldier was somewhere between barely palatable to absolutely awful. It was a wonder they didn't all die of acute indigestion! It was estimated that 995 of 1000 Union troops eventually contracted chronic diarrhea or dysentery; their Confederate counterparts suffered similarly. Disease was particularly rampant in the prisoner of war camps, whose conditions were generally worse than the army camps.

The old battlefield technique of trying to save limbs with doses of TLC (aided by wound-cleaning rats and maggots) quickly fell out of favor during the Civil War, even for top officers. The sheer number of injured was too high, and war surgeons quickly discovered that the best way to stave deadly infections was simply to lop off the area—quickly. Amputation saved more lives than any other wartime medical procedure by instantly turning complex injuries into simple ones. Battlefield surgeons eventually took no more than six minutes to get each moaning man on the table, apply a handkerchief soaked in chloroform or ether, and make the deep cut.  The standard method of soaking a handkerchief with chloroform wasted the liquid as it evaporated. Dr. Julian John Chisolm solved the dilemma by inventing a 2.5-inch inhaler, the first of its type. Chloroform was dripped through a perforated circle on the side onto a sponge in the interior; as the patient inhaled through tubes, the vapors mixed with air. This new method required only one-eighth of an ounce of chloroform, compared to the old 2-ounce dose. So while Union surgeons knocked out their patients 80,000 times during the war, rebels treated nearly as many with a fraction of the supplies.