Medicine during the

Civil War

Chris ShraderDr. Powell

English 241 – Survey of American Literature 125 November 2014

A smoky horizon is all you can see as you rush through the gun powder

and fog looking for the source of the screaming. You have no idea who it is, or why they are screaming; you are just doing your job. Finally. You

get near the source of the screaming, but all you can see is bodies laying

all over the bloody ground.

Shaking and turning over each body, you frantically search for the toe-curling scream that a person is producing. You find the person that

is dying. Upon finding them, you notice they have been a victim of a hand grenade and their leg is badly injured. Your medical instincts are

kicking in and suddenly you’re flipping them over to tear off the

pants leg to reveal the remnants of what used to be a leg.

Paying no attention to the identity of the soldier, you try your best to save their life. Examining the wound, you

realize your only choice is to amputate the leg. Rummaging through your medical bag, you

realize you have no chloroform and grab your bone saw. You start sawing at the bloody mess to amputate the leg. This is the soldier’s only chance at living and you know it. The leg is finally removed and you finally look up to half-heartedly tell the soldier he is going to be okay and that you are going to take him to a hospital

tent.

The face staring at you with the eyes of death looks familiar. It’s your brother. The brother that you haven’t seen in 10 years. The brother that left you after

an argument and went south to work on the farms. The brother that is on the opposing side of

your northern comrades. As you both realize who the other person is, the dying man

manages to release a pitiful “I love you, brother” as he dies in

his own blood’s arms.

historynet.com and civilwaracademy

Painkillers used by medics: Chloroform was a new style of painkiller created in the 1840s that

worked as an anesthetic.Morphine, opium, and whiskey were the old-style painkillers used

for wounded soldiers.These were used to prevent the soldier from going into shock from

the pain of battle wounds.

Painkillers

Antibiotics to Fight Infection and Diseases

• Calomel• Calomel was essentially a compound made actively with mercury

that was used by doctors to treat a wide variety of problems with soldiers. • Antibiotic cream for wounds.• Diarrhea and dysentery.

• Used for many years as people did not know the adverse effects of mercury on the human body.

• There was not a traditional dose, so many patients received mercurial gangrene, which is the death and infection of cheek and mouth tissue.

• Pus was often thought to be a sign of healing and doctors would transfer pus from patients who had it to other patients in order to heal them.

civilwartalk and civilwar.org

Infections the Soldiers Faced

• Pneumonia.• Inflammatory infection

of the lungs.

• Wound infections.

Dysentery.Uncontrollable diarrhea that often lead to death by dehydration.

Malaria.Mosquito-borne disease that causes strong fever and death.

Small pox.Many bumps cover the skin with infection and cause infection, killing many of its victims.

Amputations: The Most Common Surgeries

• Due to the large amount of wounded, amputations became the treatment of choice due to its quick nature.

• Chloroform was used as an anesthetic to prevent shock in the victims.• Did not often make the patient fully

unconscious.• Doctors did not worry about sterility. The

biggest focus was getting the amputation finished and moving onto the next patient.

• It’s estimated that as high as 75% of amputees recovered successfully.

sonofthesouth.net

Amputation Kit Commonly Used During The Civil War

Personal Lives of the Medics

• Due to the massive amount of death and injury seen, many doctors suffered PTSD.

• The stress of surgery left a huge impact on the doctors and nurses.

• This much gore and death led many soldiers scarred physically and mentally, as many of them had scarring procedures done due to injuries.• Many people were amputees, which in an industrial world,

led to a life of unemployment.

Bedford Anthology

Walt Whitman: An Author and

Medic

• Walt Whitman was a medic during the Civil War that later wrote about his horrific experiences during the war.

• “The Wound-Dresser.”• Poem about seeing a very broken man who

has been through multiple surgeries and amputations.

• It shows how ruined the man’s life is after the war.

• “A Sight in the Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim.”• This poem shows that many people died

during the war.• The people who died did not deserve to die

and Whitman compares them to being on the same spiritual level as Christ.

Impact on Future Medicine• The mass amount of surgery and

uses of medicine used during the war allowed doctors to see what worked and did not work.

• They were able to get better at performing surgery and allowing it to become more successful.

• Doctors learned quickly that calomel had very bad side effects.

References• 1, Medical. "WHY." W H Y ? (n.d.): 175-80. Civil War. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.• "Battlefield Medics: Saving Lives Under Fire." History Net Where History Comes

Alive World US History Online Battlefield Medics Saving Lives Under Fire Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.

• "Calomel." American Civil War Forums. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.• "Civil War Medicine - Civil War Academy - American Civil War." Civil War

Academy American Civil War. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.• "Civil War Medicine." Civil War Medicine. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2014.• Whitman, Walt. "New Poetic Voices." Bedford Anthology of American Literature.

By Susan Belasco and Linck Johnson. N.p.: Bedford, 2014. 1455-457. Print.