Sanitation During The Civil War Essay

Sebastian Pimentel
12-9-2012
Rypma U.S History
Medicine and sanitation during the civil war

During the Civil War many practices of sanitation were ignored and forgotten about, and medicine was very primitive during this time. It is said that half of the deaths that occurred during the war were because of injuries and or disease. The way that doctors would preform surgical procedures was rather disgusting if you don’t mind me saying but then again I don’t blame them because they didn’t know any better at the time. They would preform surgeries on almost the same table/bed without cleaning it at all. It was said that doctors would inspect large open wounds with their bare hands. Whenever a doctor had just finished a very long and bloody surgery he would just wipe his tools with his apron (that was probably very dirty to begin with) and when he was done “cleaning it” he would move on to his next patient and use the exact same tools that he did with the last person. The one thing that people had used during this time to try and treat anything was mercury which to me doesn’t sound so smart.
But that is what the doctors in the field would use also the one very popular tool that was used during that time was the “bone saw” it is exactly what is sounds like. A saw used to amputate patients and cut straight through their bone. Which by the way this wasn’t the sharpest tool to begin with so sometimes when a doctor was cutting patients leg the saw would get stuck in the leg and they would have to…show more content…
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