Nursing During Civil War

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During the Civil War, many different occupations existed for people with different skills. One of the main occupations was nursing. Every wounded soldier needed a nurse so there had to always be many of them on hand for when they were needed. They were needed for many things such as illnesses, diseases, sores, and injuries. The participants in the war were not immune to communicable diseases and did not know the way to avoid them; therefore they were wide open to the many germs in the world. Many of them lived in unsanitary conditions and had no way to avoid the shortage of supplies. One of the main solutions to their issues was amputation which was extremely unsanitary at that time compared to now. In addition, the treatments they knew of to avoid them did not work effectively. One aspect of nursing was the illnesses and diseases. The illnesses were caused by the physical conditions such as weather, germs, and the amount of people who were unable to cleanse themselves. The people did not have showers, shampoo, conditioner, proper clothing, or any other type of supplies; therefore they were most-likely very greasy, smelly, and unclean. They did not have the equipment to avoid the illnesses either. The medical school did not even own one microscope or stethoscope. Two…show more content…
They Union had fewer than ten thousand of them. The confederate had less than 4,000. The ones that they did have knew little of what they were doing. Most of them have never performed a surgery or even treated a wound from a gunshot. This contributed to the many deaths that occurred during the civil war. If they would have had more nurses and doctors to aid them, they might have had fewer deaths and more people to fight in the war. Most of the nurses they did have were civilians who stepped in to help when needed. They knew little and were undereducated. This was one of the many issues during the civil

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