Civil War Surgery Pt.I

stfmg · #1 ● 02-15-2017, 12:17 PM

When a soldier is injured on the battlefield today he can expect the most sophisticated first aid.
But medical treatment for troops has not always been so advanced, as these incredible pictures from the American Civil War show, originally featured on cbsnews.com.
The images take you back 150 years to show the kind of gruesome emergency surgery that wounded soldiers had come to expect.
A blood-curdling range of saws, knives and sharp hooks were used to administer much-needed surgery to maimed fighters.

Private George W. Lemon, who was shot in the leg at the 1864 Battle of the Wilderness 1864. Captured by Confederates, treatment of his wounds was delayed and he suffered repeated infections. His leg was finally amputated

Here is Private George W. Lemon after his successful amputation

But rather than being comfortably anaesthetised, the soldiers had to grit their teeth through the pain of having their limbs amputated.
The images from the National Museum of Civil War Medicine show how fallen fighters often faced the kind of slipshod treatment more likely to be found in horror films.
Their treatment is a far cry from the kind of high-tech care such as flying-helicopters and battlefield operating theatres that injured soldiers can receive in modern warfare.
The museum's pictures show how fallen troops even underwent the gruelling procedures without antibiotics, which often led to more life-threatening infections.

This large single-edged amputation knife was used to cut through skin and muscle in circular amputations

After skin and muscle had been were severed, this amputation saw - made with a steel blade and an ebony wooden handle - cut through bones

A tenaculum was used in amputations for pulling the arteries out from the stump so that they could be tied off

Pain control was limited to doses of opium while surgeons seemed more intent on hacking off limbs than actually trying to save them.
One soldier, private George W. Lemon, was shot in the leg at the 1864 Battle of the Wilderness in 1864 but after the wound became infected he had to have his limb amputated.
A primitive amputation saw similar to one used by carpenters would have been used to hack through Mr Lemon's flesh and bone.
The agonising surgery would finally have been completed with a tenaculum hook which was used for pulling the arteries out from the stump so that they could be tied off.

In this sepia photo, a group of medical students and professors dissect a cadaver. In the civil war era, most advances in medical knowledge came through the examination of dead bodies, of which there were plenty

In this July 1863 photo, an amputation is being performed in front of a hospital tent in Gettysburg. About three quarters of all operations performed during the war - roughly 60,000 surgeries - were amputations

A hospital ward in a convalescent camp in Alexandria, Virginia, pictured in the 1860s. In crowded camp conditions, infectious diseases spread rampantly and took more lives than battlefield injuries

Another sepia photograph from the era shows a group of medical students practising on a corpse the kind of manoeuvres they would used in the battlefield.
A black and white image from July 1863 shows an amputation being performed in front of a hospital tent in Gettysburg.
Many of the 60,000 operations performed during the civil war were amputations. Surgeons would use different knives, saws and even forceps for the procedures.
The patients would be knocked out with heavy doses of opium so that they did not feel the pain.

Left is a page from 'A Manual of Military Surgery' from the Surgeon General's Office, 1863. Right, chloroform in a medicine tin found in a hospital knapsack. It was used as an anesthetic during many surgeries

Surgeons carried around kits like this one, equipped with an amputation saw, knives, forceps and other surgical equipment

Porcelain cups like these were used in hospitals to feed liquids to helpless patients

This instrument is called a tooth key and was used for pulling teeth

The American Civil began in 1861 when 11 southern states declared their independence from the U.S. and called themselves the 'the Confederacy'.
Bloody fighting with 21 northern states where slavery had been abolished continued for four years until the Confederacy finally surrounded in 1865.
The war was the first industrial scale conflict and led to the deaths of over half a million men, with another half million wounded.

This prosthetic leg made of wood is a full left leg, articulated at the knee, with a leather shoe covering the foot. It still retains some of the original flesh-colored paint