Medical Revolutions :: essays research papers

The Civil war st wileed as a picnic and ended in compassion, but in between were four hideous years of twisted flesh, burning fevers, uncontrolled pus, and oozing raw stumps. Never before had America faced counterbalance a hint of such agony and the way it responded to the occasion is charming history. In a very real sense the War surrounded by the States brought forth a health check revolution and, perhaps above each(prenominal), an ken 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 ilkd it or not, first and firstly a surgeon and always referred to as such. Though his first glossa may well have been government issued, he learned the tricks of the passel in due course and sometimes b ecame quite an expert. Do your exceed 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 young men, those who made up the bulk of the army surgeons, usually held a medical school diploma along with an office internship. Little attention was nonrecreational to clinical instruction, and in most teddys the laboratory was all but forgotten. Further, stethoscopes, thermometers, syringes, and the like were widely used in Europe while many doctors present at home had never seen them let alone used them.In regard to ability and competence, there is no reason to believe the doctors in the northwesterly and the South differed in any significant way. While the North was home to more prestigious medical institutions, the South was learning to amaze less dependent on the North in this area at the outbreak of the war. A number of schools became established. Whether good, bad, or indiffe rent, the doctors were needed and just round every device was tried to keep up supply, a problem compounded by frequent absenteeism. This situation was by no pith peculiar to the medical people, for many others in the Civil War had the garment 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.