Intro-Chapter 3

Intro-Chapter 3

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, thousands of men rushed to join the ranks of both the Union and the Confederate Armies. They had visions of glorious battles, where they would fight heroically and be welcome back home as heroes to their own countries. However, no one even thought once of the thousands of wounded and dead that a battle can produce, and that each of these men would need medical care once the battles were over and even as the battle raged on around them. By the beginning of the Civil War, there were relatively few doctors and even fewer hospitals, and the ones that were already there were incapable of handling all the wounded that each battle caused. At the start, th medical practices the doctors used were both technologically advanced for the time and out of date at the same time to help the thousands of wounded.The doctors used anesthesia, in the form of either ether or chloroform, instead of bloodletting, which had fallen out of favor. Doctors used quinine when available and alcohol to stop fevers, purgatives or opium for diarrhea, and mercury to improve liver function. For serious limb injuries, the doctor had no choice but to amputate the limb to avoid infection and losing the soldier.These techniques helped save millions of lives, as long as they were in the care of doctors that knew what they were doing with the treatments and were not corrupt. During the battle or after it, ambulance crews went to pick up the wounded to transport them to a field hospital. If the injury was serious enough, they would then be transported over large areas of the country to general hospitals, where the soldier could stay and recuperate. 

Though most doctors were men, a few women had already been able to achieve being a doctor by the time the war broke out. Most women, however, worked as nurses in the hospitals. Women reformers and relief organizions sought to improve these women's status to professional nurse, with much criticism from other doctors and around the nation.