Medical Revolutions :: essays research papers

The Civil War st crafted as a picnic and ended in compassion, but in between were four hideous old age of twisted flesh, burning fevers, rampant pus, and oozing raw stumps. Never before had America faced even a hint of such agony and the panache it responded to the occasion is fascinating history. In a very real sense the War Between the States brought forth a checkup revolution and, perhaps to a higher place all, an awareness of public health. The terrible, swift scalpel became less terrible and the dank, dirty, dingy pesthouse evolved into a pavilion of hope. Nursing, dentistry, and pharmacy also experienced a renaissance and the art and science of military medicine was projected into the future.The man of medicine who served in the Civil War was, whether he liked it or not, first and foremost a surgeon and always referred to as such. Though his first knife may well have been government issued, he learned the tricks of the trade in repayable course and sometimes became quite an expert. Do your best was the general idea, and most surgeons did, or at least tried.Nearly all the older doctors had received their education on an apprenticeship basis but the younger men, those who made up the bulk of the army surgeons, usually held a medical school diploma along with an smear internship. Little attention was paid to clinical instruction, and in most cases the laboratory was all but forgotten. Further, stethoscopes, thermometers, syringes, and the like were widely used in Europe tour many doctors here at home had never seen them let alone used them.In regard to ability and competence, there is no reason to moot the doctors in the North and the South differed in any significant way. While the North was home to more prestigious medical institutions, the South was learning to croak less dependent on the North in this area at the outbreak of the war. A number of schools became established. Whether good, bad, or indifferent, the doctors were needed and just abo ut every(prenominal) device was tried to keep up supply, a task compounded by frequent absenteeism. This situation was by no means peculiar to the medical people, for many others in the Civil War had the habit of picking up their blankets and heading back to the old homestead. This is exactly the case for Inman in the novel, Cold Mountain, by Carles Frazier.