In the Old West, there were plenty of ways to die, including snake bites, bullet wounds, STDs, dysentery, rabies, childbirth, and Malaria (known as ague) along with a host of other diseases or accidental injuries.
Prior to the Civil War, poor people had a better chance of surviving sickness or injury than their ritzier neighbors. Doctors of that time, if they were trained at all, tended to bleed their patients to balance the humoral systems of the body, up to as much as a pint per day. Not only had they never heard of a germ, none of them even grasped the rudimentary basics of personal hygiene. Physicians would never think of washing their hands or sterilizing their instruments before working on a person. A pre-Civil War patient was better off using home remedies than making a trip to the doctor in town.
Prior to the Civil War, poor people had a better chance of surviving sickness or injury than their ritzier neighbors. Doctors of that time, if they were trained at all, tended to bleed their patients to balance the humoral systems of the body, up to as much as a pint per day. Not only had they never heard of a germ, none of them even grasped the rudimentary basics of personal hygiene. Physicians would never think of washing their hands or sterilizing their instruments before working on a person. A pre-Civil War patient was better off using home remedies than making a trip to the doctor in town.
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| Battle of Spottsylvania in Virginia byThure de Thulstrup |
The Civil War changed medical treatment forever and ushered in what we think of now as the modern era of medicine. More than 12,000 physicians treated millions of soldiers on the battlefield during the conflict between the North and South from 1861 to 1865. Bleeding a man with leeches while he was already bleeding from a ghastly bullet wound didn’t make much sense, so doctors veered off the track of traditional medicine and got creative. Amputation became the norm to stave off infection, but doctors also gained insight that would help save future patients and their limbs.
Before the Civil War, anyone could hang out a shingle as a doctor, and in the Old West, frontier medicine was often administered by quacks peddling snake-oil and unregulated opiate drugs. Many of them were unsavory characters hiding out in small towns. Native American medicine men knew more about healing the body than the average doctor.
When the War Between the States broke out, the qualifications for becoming an army doctor or surgeon were minimal. But in 1862, a revolution in medicine was set in motion by U.S. Surgeon General William Hammond. He made it a requirement that all military physicians receive training in public health, hygiene, and surgery.
When the War Between the States broke out, the qualifications for becoming an army doctor or surgeon were minimal. But in 1862, a revolution in medicine was set in motion by U.S. Surgeon General William Hammond. He made it a requirement that all military physicians receive training in public health, hygiene, and surgery.
Then he sent out an odd, yet revolutionary request to all field medical personnel in the Union Army to forward any notes or specimens of morbid anatomy that might add to the knowledge base in the practice of military medicine and surgery. Rather than basing medicine on accepted tradition, i.e. bloodletting, Hammond ushered in medical treatment based on evidence. The samples he collected provided case studies to train and prepare doctors during and after the war.
After the Civil War, rather than returning home, many of those battlefield-trained doctors headed west and set up offices along the way. They trained other physicians and medical assistants and practiced the new methods they had learned during the war.
Gunshot wounds, which often became infected and led to amputation or death, were treated post-Civil War by leaving the wound open and cleaning it regularly until new skin developed, rather than amputating or taking out the bullet and then sewing up the patient, which led to infection.
The knowledge gained on Civil War battlefields saved countless lives in the years to come in the Old West.
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After more than twenty years spent acquiring and editing books by numerous bestselling Christian authors, Barbara J. Scott has returned to her true love—writing. Barbara and her husband Mike live in the Nashville area, where sweet tea is a food staple, with their two Chihuahuas, Riley and Sissy, both rescued from puppy mills. Reading, writing, and research are her passions. Want to know more? Connect with Barbara at www.BarbaraJScott.com.
