# What medical advances were made in the Civil War? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 12, 2011, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-advances-were-made-in-the-civil-war/585211 "2011-06-12T11:44:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-advances-were-made-in-the-civil-war/585211/1 "2011-06-12T11:44:14Z")
I was recently watching a documentary about Gettysburg, and I was reminded of the sheer brutality of Civil War era medicine; I find it amazing that this was only 150 years ago. Basically, the doctors specialized in speed of purpose, and their remedy for any war wound seemed to be - “chop it off.”. Limbs were amputated on all of the injured soldiers, and, IIRC, a skilled doctor could remove a limb in 12 minutes. Anesthesia was in its infancy. No concern was taken for hygiene. Doctors didn’t even clean their instruments (and I use that term loosely - it was a hacksaw) between patients! Since I’m sure that my understanding of medicine during this time is a gross oversimplification of the subject, I assume that _some_ innovations or advances in modern medicine came out of this “quackery”. What were they? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-advances-were-made-in-the-civil-war/585211/2 "2011-06-12T12:54:27Z")
Oh, there were TONS of advances in medicine, specifically hygiene, training and nursing, during that time! No, really! Thing is, you’ve got to compare it to what came before, not what we have today. > [@](#): > > The contributions to medical care that developed during the Civil War have not been fully appreciated, probably because the quality of care administered was compared against modern standards rather than the standards of the time. The specific accomplishments that constituted major advances were as follows. 1. Accumulation of adequate records and detailed reports for the first time permitted a complete military medical history. This led to the publication of the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, which was identified in Europe as the first major academic accomplishment by US medicine. 2. Development of a system of managing mass casualties, including aid stations, field hospitals, and general hospitals, set the pattern for management of the wounded in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. 3. The pavilion-style general hospitals, which were well ventilated and clean, were copied in the design of large civilian hospitals over the next 75 years. 4. The importance of immediate, definitive treatment of wounds and fractures was demonstrated and it was shown that major operative procedures, such as amputation, were optimally carried out in the first 24 hours after wounding. 5. The importance of sanitation and hygiene in preventing infection, disease, and death among the troops in the field was demonstrated. 6. Female nurses were introduced to hospital care and Catholic orders entered the hospital business. 7. The experience and training of thousands of physicians were upgraded and they were introduced to new ideas and standards of care. These included familiarity with prevention and treatment of infectious disease, with anesthetic agents, and with surgical principles that rapidly advanced the overall quality of American medical practice. 8. The Sanitary Commission was formed, a civilian-organized soldier’s relief society that set the pattern for the development of the American Red Cross. > **[Medical advances during the Civil War - PubMed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3046560/)** > > The contributions to medical care that developed during the Civil War have not been fully appreciated, probably because the quality of care administered was compared against modern standards rather than the standards of the time. The specific... The “hack off one leg and use the same dirty saw on the next patient” was, indeed, the standard of care at the beginning of the war, but by the end, 75% of amputations were done cleanly and quickly, using anesthetics and techniques to minimize blood loss. The very act of systematically training surgeons to do that was revolutionary. And, of course, as a nurse, I’m very glad that The Civil War saw the rise of women in nursing, and in excellent (for the day) nursing schools and rising prestige for nurses - who were previously considered little more than whores with bandages. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-advances-were-made-in-the-civil-war/585211/3 "2011-06-12T13:46:23Z")
Indeed. Anesthesia was well known before the Civil War and widely used. When it wasn’t, it was more a problem of time than know-how. Speaking of #6 on that list, Surgical techniques improved dramatically during the Civil War. I consider it the father of modern surgery, in fact! Before that time, a physician was likely unfamiliar with the scalpel. But during the war, physicians by the thousands learned the trade the hard way. Not the idea situation for the patient, mind, but it did introduce American medical practice to the concept, and they did well enough in such a trial by fire. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-advances-were-made-in-the-civil-war/585211/4 "2011-06-12T14:34:20Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Oh, there were TONS of advances in medicine, specifically hygiene, training and nursing, during that time! No, really! Thank you for the excellent post. This fought some ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-advances-were-made-in-the-civil-war/585211/5 "2011-06-12T14:51:29Z")
The civil war also led to the modern system of ongoing health care for veterans. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-advances-were-made-in-the-civil-war/585211/6 "2011-06-12T15:18:07Z")
There’s a [museum](http://www.civilwarmed.org/museum/visit-us/) in Frederick, Maryland, dedicated to the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-advances-were-made-in-the-civil-war/585211/7 "2011-06-12T20:46:37Z")
Battlefield medicine required speed, when many patients were waiting to be treated. Most civilian hospitals and doctors would not see huge influxes of patients like that and would have more time to devote to their patients. The rigors of transportation in unsprung carts must have killed many soldiers by the time that they got to the hospital. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-advances-were-made-in-the-civil-war/585211/8 "2011-06-13T15:15:31Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > The rigors of transportation in unsprung carts must have killed many soldiers by the time that they got to the hospital. This was a particular source of horror late in the war. Historian Bruce Catton writes very movingly of the travails of the wounded produced by Grant’s “Forty Days” campaign. The huge column of ambulances from the Wilderness battle began an agonizing journey back to already-war-damaged Fredericksburg over roads so bad that some of them were “corduroyed” (using rounded, not flattened, logs as the road surface). The wounded were often turned on their sides and packed in like sardines to get them all in the wagons, which had no shock absorbers. The first warning anyone in the town had was when seven thousand wounded men arrived at 1:00 AM without any prior warning. And they kept coming. The ambulances from Spotsylvania started the journey before the ambulances from the Wilderness had even arrived. And on and on, from battle after battle, a _continuous_ column of agony poured into the tiny town which was totally unprepared to deal with them. [QUOTE=Bruce Catton, a Stillness at Appomattox] It was as if war, the great clumsy machine for maiming people, had at last been perfected. Instead of turning out its grist spasmodically, with long waits between each delivery, it was at last able to produce every day, without any gaps at all. [/QUOTE] You can read more [here](http://books.google.com/books?id=e_LXdATnb70C&pg=PT128&lpg=PT128&dq=Catton+%22the+surgeons+had+done+what+they+could%22&source=bl&ots=ruBIQp-nl9&sig=9kN6dhazl595eDFRRnuCxkGmwvg&hl=en&ei=Cin2TZSDM4fq0gG0rcnvDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false), if you can stomach it.