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Anesthesia During The Civil War

1300 Words6 Pages

The Civil War was a tragic occurrence that killed over six hundred thousand men. In the beginning of the war, in 1865, doctors did not understand how to prevent the spreading of disease, how to stop infection, and the importance of sanitation and nutrition. This fatal mistake left many children orphaned and many wives widowed. The American Civil War changed medical treatment tremendously. Modern hospitals were created, and they allowed soldiers to heal in sanitary conditions. They also allowed civil war doctors to easily care for their patients. Anesthesia was an extremely important advance in medicine. Surgeons would use either ether or chloroform to knock out patients while they performed the surgery. This stopped patients from feeling any …show more content…

Six hundred thousand people died, and not just from the war. Living conditions were terrible, if there were any, and everything was so unsanitary it allowed diseases to be easily passed among soldiers. However, there was a silver lining. The Civil War changed medical treatment forever, and those discoveries saved thousands of lives back then, and today. Modern hospitals were one of the first things that changed. Doctors and surgeons were not prepared for the immense amount of injured soldiers that needed to be treated. Most of those soldiers died because they were being treated in unsanitary conditions, had to share beds, and breath the diseased air of the frontier hospitals. Thankfully, doctors realized this and started to make changes. They turned crammed hospitals into large, open spaces, added ventilation, and made sure to use sanitary tools. Anesthesia was first discovered about ten years before the war, but it wasn’t very effective or widely used. When the Civil War started, it was almost impossible to perform surgery on patients that were conscious and in pain, so doctors invented new ways to distribute anesthesia, making it easier for the doctor and the patient. Another problem before the Civil War was surgical techniques. The use of unsanitary instruments and brutal methods made patients actually be more likely to die if doctors operated on them. However, the Civil War introduced new methods that saved thousands of lives. Overall, the Civil War and the situations it created improved medical treatment in such a tremendous way that some methods and techniques are still used

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