Going into the Civil War, the knowledge about medicine and medical practices was primitive. People didn’t know about sterilization, or cleanliness in general. During the Civil War, many diseases ravaged the soldiers on both sides of the war, such as malaria, tetanus, and blood poisoning. But in spite of all the horrible things going on, there was some good medical advances going on as well. In the Civil War, there were tons of diseases that ran rampant all over both the Union and Confederate parties. Infections were the leading cause of death in the Civil War; about two-thirds of all deaths were disease related. Appendicitis and typhoid fever were generally undiagnosed. It was a dark time. Diseases like gangrene, tetanus, erysipelas, …show more content…
At the time of the Civil War, there were 55,000 physicians in the United States. They had no correct theories on disease, and American medicine was severely behind European medicine. Medical knowledge in the United States was extremely primitive, but there were some things that were known. Anesthesia was introduced in the late 1840’s. Morphine was used to anesthetize patients, as well as chloroform. Anesthesia was needed because there were a lot of amputations in the Civil War. Soldiers would be shot in the leg, and to stop the risk of infecting the rest of his body, the surgeon would, more often than not, amputate the limb. The soldier would be given an anesthetic to reduce the pain felt during the operation. Of the approximately 175,000 wounds in survivors of the Civil War, 30,000 were severe enough to cause amputation. Of these 30,000, there was a 30% mortality rate. Amputations needed to be done within 48 hours of the injury, or else the risk of spreading an infection would be dramatically higher. After an amputation, surgeons would pile the limbs and when there was a substantial amount of them, they would burn the pile so the limbs couldn’t spread the diseases they were