In the American civil war, often gets credit for ending slavery and redesign the Federal Government in this country. But the war between the States has another, often overlooked legacy: it may have started a new era in modern medicine.
When soldiers never unprecedented number of injuries and diseases, anesthesia became a speciality. The fields of plastic and reconstructive surgery exploded. And doctors developed new ways for the treatment of an increase in nerve injuries and chronic pain, mark the beginning of contemporary Neurology.
At the same time, a visionary surgeon named Jonathan Letterman said forever changed from the river of medical treatment in the hospital, George Wunderlich, Executive Director of the National Museum of civil war medicine in Frederick, MD.
Now, continue to 150 years later, Letterman's medical care in a variety of situations, from bomb attacks in Afghanistan to heart attacks in American grocery stores affect basic principles.
"Civil war medicine was every bit as barbaric as it be made out, and surgeons were not washing their hands has", Wunderlich said. "But it was a million times more modern than almost everyone thinks." "And there are a lot of lessons that we can learn from today still."
Medically, the United States was shockingly ready when the civil war in the spring of 1861 started, said Michael Rhode, Archivist at the National Museum of health and medicine in Washington, D.C. had passed almost 80 years since the end of the American Revolutionary War, the country's last great war. And the new conflict happened on a much larger scale.
Scientists had to come up with the theory that germs cause disease yet in the meantime. Doctors did not know that they should wash their hands before dismembered limbs. As soldiers from small towns in large groups along came, it was newly exposed to pathogens, who had never before their bodies. But there were no antibiotics and no antiseptics.
For every civil war soldier, the injury or gunshot wound died as a result, more than two died of dysentery, diarrhea, or diseases caught others.
"what it caused had no idea," said Rhode. "The theory was that some miasma or bad airs is." "But no, it's not a miasma if a man wiping his surgical knives on a boot strap with horse dung on it is."
Medicine has come a long way since then. Injuries resulting in amputation 150 years ago now to X-rays, the setting of bones and a period of four to six - week recovery showcase returning to battle.
In the course of the war teaching doctors forever, as health care changes, both on the battlefield and in addition some.
For example, there was a growing sense of cleanliness to reduce fatalities. Gaps in understanding of neuroscience and other fields and specialists doctors, the soldiers still treated their lines of research even after the end of the war.
Then, was close to the source of damage as still Letterman, which creates a as a medical director for the Union army well organized system of maintenance, which began with triage and was followed by rapid transportation to a number of clinics, hospitals and specialists. Have replaced although Wunderlich said technological advances with helicopters and jets, horse and carriage, remain these types of protocols today indispensable.
As the civil war ended and soldiers returned home, she kept their expectations for fast and efficient treatment in all situations. When a wounded man in the battle of Gettysburg could be picked up, can should fall everyone not finally quick help to get from a ladder on the road?
As a result, the end of the war saw systems in many major cities ambulance at the beginning. Letterman's ideas also directly influence the nature and manner of today's 911 call system work. And the National Museum of civil war medicine the surgeon has used ideas to train hundreds of thousands of doctors have been sent to Afghanistan.
The war "was a watershed, the really all medicine where it could go there never fully back to the way before being changed to the point," Wunderlich said. "All these changes come about, and people were not prepared to go back."
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