Modern Medical Practices During The Civil War

Modern medical technology and procedures save lives everyday. Some of the modern medical practices that we use today started in the Civil War. In a modern war, the majority of American soldiers will die due to enemy fire. Over two-thirds of the soldiers that died in the Civil War perished outside of the battlefield. There was a killer that was not fully understood, disease. (Dixon 2013) The Civil War is known as the deadliest war that the United States has ever engaged in with approximately 620,000 deaths. Dixon states that the most common diseases that killed soldiers were dysentery, typhoid fever, pneumonia, mumps, measles and tuberculosis. The Civil War was the deadliest war in the United States because both sides were Americans, but the staggering mortality rate can also be attributed to the medical practices of the time. When I have cut myself in football or tripping, my immediate reaction is to clean the cut out with antiseptic and cover it with a bandage in …show more content…
The Civil War also changed the medical field of the time and spurred change that would lead to the medical advancements/practices that we have today. During the Civil War, doctors gained invaluable skills that they would have never gained had otherwise. They learned new methods such as the medical innovations described previously and learned to improve their record keeping in order to help other doctors learn too. After the Civil war ended, the doctors retained the information they learned and kept their expectations for “quick and efficient treatment in all situations.” These Civil War doctors applied their knowledge to everyday situations outside of the battlefield such as falling off a ladder or tripping and scraping your knee. One of the most important ideas that doctors acquired was the ambulance-to-ER system created by Letterman. This system was vital in establishing the lifesaving 911 systems that we have today (Boyd and Hicks 2013) (Sohn