Medicine in the American Civil War

Medicine in the American Civil War was not good by today's standards. Doctors did not know about germs, so many soldiers caught infections. They did have anesthesia, so they were able to stop soldiers' pain.^[1][2] Most doctors in the United States had two years of schooling. Harvard Medical School did not have even one microscope.^[3]

One problem was that, like in World War I, people had just invented new weapons, like the Minié ball. Guns with rifled barrels did not miss as often as the muskets from the Revolutionary War and other earlier wars did. That meant doctors did not already know how to treat the injuries that these weapons could cause in the human body. Another problem was that the camps and battlefields were very dirty. A soldier in the American Civil war was twice as likely to die of disease as of a battle injury.^[1]

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Mary Williams. "Medicine in the American Civil War". CPR Certified. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
2. ↑ "Medicine in the Civil War". From Quackery to Bacteriology. University of Toledo Libraries. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
3. ↑ Jenny Goellnitz. "Civil War Medicine: An Overview of Medicine". Ohio State University. Retrieved June 6, 2021.