Casualty Statistics Question

[zburkett]

I read up on various 19th century medical advances last spring during the TV series "Mercy Street." (Actually it was a review of what I learned in 8th and 9th grade health classes.) Obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweiss pioneered hand-washing in the 1840s and 50s. Most physicians rejected his findings and pushed Semmelweiss, to whom every woman who has had a child should be grateful, into obscurity, poverty and eventual insanity. The other famous "microbe hunters" (Koch, Pasteur, Lister, etc.) came into prominence about 10-15 years after the war. Lister's articles on antiseptic surgery were published in 1867--so close! Of course it also took a while for their discoveries to be accepted by the general run of medical practitioners.

Look up "laudable pus" to find the medical attitude towards infection in the Civil War. Infection was considered a normal part of the healing process!

It happened well into the 20th century. I had polio in 1950 (pre-Salk). At the time there were two schools of thought on how to treat it, total rest with little movement or work our butts off. Fortunately for my Doctor was of the latter school. Many of those who were kept in bed never got out.

 

[MaryDee]

It happened well into the 20th century. I had polio in 1950 (pre-Salk). At the time there were two schools of thought on how to treat it, total rest with little movement or work our butts off. Fortunately for my Doctor was of the latter school. Many of those who were kept in bed never got out.

I lost several friends in the polio epidemic that hit (in the western states and mostly college-age students) just before the Salk vaccine came out. One of my friends did make a complete recovery--she was a ballet dancer and refused to stop trying to dance until she got her muscles working again! As soon as my university's student health center received the Salk vaccine, the lines extended all the way across campus!

 

[zburkett]

Mary Dee, it is hard to describe. I was ten years old, sitting on the examining table and they walked in and told me I had Polio. Part of me will always be on that examining room table.