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Innovation In Wars

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Conflict and Innovation Cycle in Wars

Conflict and innovation, one of the main reasons technology and society have grow into what they are today. Both these ideas go hand in hand because they each rely on the other to function properly. Without a conflict, no innovation will be crated to solve the problem at hand. Sadly, the world is filled with conflicts, whether it be on a global scale or a personally level, conflicts and innovations are everywhere. This is illustrated by the many war fought over the course of modern civilization. World War 1, the Great War, World War 2, the largest war to date, and Vietnam, the unwanted war, all of these wars were terrible, however many innovations were invented to combat the terrible violence. Because …show more content…
A good example of this is the creation and use of nitrous oxide in World War 1. World War 1 was a blood war because of the technological advancements of weaponry and the lack of new tactics. Because of this, soldiers would get extremely wounded and would need a surgery to save their lives. However, the problem of using anesthesia came into the light when the doctors isn't have any good topical anesthetics. Because of this, nitrous oxide was created to give the doctors a topical anesthetic to help the soldiers through there surgeries. “Also, because the sheer scale of the destruction meant armies had to become better organized in looking after the wounded.” (BBC, 2014) because of this, the doctors and surgeons need nitrous oxide to better aid the soldiers during different surgeries. This innovations is still being used in society today in dental offices for basic mouth surgeries because nitrous oxide doesn't have any bad side affects. Another good innovation that came out of a terrible war was the U.S. Veterans Affairs created after the Vietnam war. Because the Vietnam war was focused more on psychological warfare, the amount of soldiers that suffered from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) heightened at this time. To combat this problem the U.S. Government created the Veterans Association to better aid the veterans with PTSD. “Male theater …show more content…
Before the use of nitrous oxide, chloroform was a common anesthetic used by surgeons and doctors across the World War 1 battlefields. At the time, chloroform was seen as a problem because it did its job of putting the soldiers to sleep during surgeries, however due to its strength, chloroform is now used as a date rape drug to put women to sleep. This drug has caused thousands of women to get raped each year due to the affects of chloroform on the human body. Because of this, chloroform is now banned from use in surgeries and medical practices because of its ill affects on society. Another innovations that caused problems for the populous after its creation was penicillin. When penicillin was first created and used in World War 2, it was considered a miracle drug, however now it has created bacteria that are resistant to the antibiotic and can not be killed by normal antibiotics. This problem has exalted in recent years because common forms of bacteria are now resistant to the commonly prescribed penicillin. Also 10% of the population is allergic to penicillin as a whole and it can not be used. “Fleming found that his "mold juice" was capable of killing a wide range of harmful bacteria” (ACS, n.d) because penicillin is linked with a type of mold, people are extremely allergic to the antibiotic as a whole.

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