Care of the Wounded

I went back to the Visitor Center today so I could hear the Park Ranger talk about the care of the wounded Civil War Soldier. At one point there were 16,000 wounded in Gettysburg, a town of only 2400 residents. To become a doctor back then, you basically read a book and whalla, you were a doctor. The more experienced doctor would have a couple of less experience doctor students. I guess it did not take long to become experienced as they saw a patient about every 15 minutes. They used either ether or chloroform as anesthetic. In the 1860's they thought germs were airborne, so cleaning instruments or their hands was not a priority. They would even take the dressings from one patient, rinse them out in a bucket and put then on someone else. Did you know the first brain surgery in the US was on a soldier in the Civil War and he lived. The Civil War was the first time doctors documented the patient's care and also after the war, they tried to follow up with them to see how they did. It was also the first time they used bromide to clean wounds. Kind of like Alka Seltzer fizzing up to clean the wound. One of the doctors from the Civil War went on to found John Hopkins. Here are some of the surgeons instruments of the day. The saw looks particularly nasty.