When I have a few minutes I am going to dig for IMHO a little more solid answer. I don’t feel you’re entirely wrong but surface clotting of a gunshot wound is only minimally useful especially from a hit by a rifle round. Most of the damage is well beneath the surface and will require surgical intervention.
Primary infection risk IIRC is going to be from pieces of the soldiers uniform/equipment that were pushed into the wound by the bullet impact. The bullet is actually quite clean having been subjected to serious extremes of pressure and temperature in the barrel as well as from air friction.
I could see the usefulness of a clotting agent on hits that just gouge the surface or take a chunk out of an arm or leg but against a straight penetration of the torso…you’re not really even delaying the inevitable.
Having checked a few sites I see no mention of Sulfa being a “clotting agent”. It does apparently help very much with preventing infection when there were delays in soldiers arrival at the hospital.
My guess, they had little idea what it actually did, but they were in a panic, and know “the medic always does it when he patches someone up” so it must help.
Cargo cult: After the Europeans invaded the South Pacific, an odd ritual arose among a couple of the displaced island groups. They saw the Europeans arrive, set up shop, and come to dominate the local culture, despite being quite ignorant of the religions and mores of the peoples they dispossessed. One thing the indigenes noted was that periodically the Europeans would be visited by ships bringing “cargo” that could be used to co-opt the local governments through trade or re-inforce the Europeans’ position by bringing weapons. In a couple of odd cases, the indigenes decided to get some of the good mojo from the Europeans by emulating them. They dressed up in European-looking garments and made parades carrying “cargo” through the streets and otherwise mimicked the daily actions of the Europeans in an effort to secure cargo through sympathetic magic. (Unfortunately, repeating the Europeans rituals did not have the benefit of bringing “cargo” to the islanders, so their efforts failed.)
An interesting note, sulfa powder (sulfanilamide and trace amounts of aluminum sulfate and titanium dioxide) is still being used by both the US Army and USAF and instruction for its use occupies a total of two hours of instructional time at both the US Army Combat Medic school based out of Ft. Bragg, NC as well as the USAF Pararescue School (actually a combination of a dozen or so schools, with the medic segment being given at Ft. Bragg.)
If you’ve enlisted, get a copy of your medical jacket and you’ll see, even today, that the cover actually has a checkbox for ‘sulfa allergies’ or has been ammended with a rubber stamp as such.
As for the comments about shooting at medics, the term “Combat Medic” did not evolve until the middle of the Korean War when the US Army began issuing rifles to medics. A medic (as well as chaplains, wounded, POW’s and unarmed civilians) are considered non-combatants and are not to be targeted. This was designated in 1945 with the Geneva Conventions when the fact that ‘medical personnel were deliberately sought out and eliminated by enemy personnel’ was brought to light. The Articles of War (I forget when THAT worthless document was created) prohibited the targeting of non-combatants, but German, Allied, and especially Imperial Japanese forces ignored its rulings. The US Army (and subsequently the US Navy which supplies corpsmen [medics] to the USMC) began issuing rifles and sidearms to battlefield medical personnel in Korea because the North Koreans and Communist Chinese forces were not signatories to the Convention, and continued to ‘hunt’ medics. Unfortunately, issuing weapons to ‘non-combatants’ didn’t jive too well, and as such, the Red Cross armband (a ‘protected symbol’ indicating non-combatant status) fell into disuse. In its stead, the term ‘combat medic’ came into use to describe an infantryman who is further trained in field medicine.
An interesting note, sulfa powder (sulfanilamide and trace amounts of aluminum sulfate and titanium dioxide) is still being used by both the US Army and USAF and instruction for its use occupies a total of two hours of instructional time at both the US Army Combat Medic school based out of Ft. Bragg, NC as well as the USAF Pararescue School (actually a combination of a dozen or so schools, with the medic segment being given at Ft. Bragg.)
If you’ve enlisted, get a copy of your medical jacket and you’ll see, even today, that the cover actually has a checkbox for ‘sulfa allergies’ or has been ammended with a rubber stamp as such.
As for the comments about shooting at medics, the term “Combat Medic” did not evolve until the middle of the Korean War when the US Army began issuing rifles to medics. A medic (as well as chaplains, wounded, POW’s and unarmed civilians) are considered non-combatants and are not to be targeted. This was designated in 1945 with the Geneva Conventions when the fact that ‘medical personnel were deliberately sought out and eliminated by enemy personnel’ was brought to light. The Articles of War (I forget when THAT worthless document was created) prohibited the targeting of non-combatants, but German, Allied, and especially Imperial Japanese forces ignored its rulings. The US Army (and subsequently the US Navy which supplies corpsmen [medics] to the USMC) began issuing rifles and sidearms to battlefield medical personnel in Korea because the North Koreans and Communist Chinese forces were not signatories to the Convention, and continued to ‘hunt’ medics. Unfortunately, issuing weapons to ‘non-combatants’ didn’t jive too well, and as such, the Red Cross armband (a ‘protected symbol’ indicating non-combatant status) fell into disuse. In its stead, the term ‘combat medic’ came into use to describe an infantryman who is further trained in field medicine.
I was assuming somewhat about the urgency bit- but my dad was an Indian Air Force pilot in 1951 and the sulfa he was issued with contained a cauterizing agent- it wasn’t the sulfanilamide itself which produced the effect. However, he was led to believe that it was always supplied that way (the British and American officer training corps were issued with the same stuff)