Workshop Resources - Medical
Suggestions: have two people who talk to the audience so they can spell each other off. The surgeon and patients can carry on with the activities of the time. The narrators can offer commentary on what is going on and add in additional information from the notes. Pick out the most important and interesting facts to give the audience. To make it more interactive, have the audience guess what certain implements do. The surgeon can also interact with the audience but it may be too much for one person.
Equipment: set of surgeon's implements, fake limbs, bowls for washing surgeon's hand, apron (bloodstained for surgeon), musket balls, ripped and bloody shirt.
Military medicine and surgery notes
Military medicine and surgery
-about 75% of military deaths due to disease
lack of fresh food and vegetables could lead to scurvy, diet often monotonous and low in nutrients, lack of nutrients showed up in bones but lack of sugars meant lack of cavities but poor dental hygiene meant abcesses and tooth ache that could lead to teeth being pulled
- even in barracks some bad sanitary practices as communal tub used for waste instead of individual chamber pots, this tub would be emptied and filled with water and used for washing up in the morning; the result was a high rate of eye infections
-misconception that dampness was a cause of disease so people rarely washed or washed their quarters, US general Winfield Scott was ahead of his time and ordered his men to bathe 3 times per week in the lake, not the creek where they got their drinking water and tents to be aired and officers to inspect the men's food before they ate (Scott's nickname was 'Old Fuss and Feathers' but the men's health improved
-sanitary conditions were poor in military camps so many soldiers died of disease or were too sick to fight
-dysentry was a summer disease that afflicted 1/3rd or more of the American army depending on the camp's location – Sackett's Harbour being the most notorious (dysentry is an infection of the intestines resulting in hours long episodes of diarrhea – mixed with blood, pus and mucus – the result can be dehydration that can kill a person)
-the American doctor at the base perscribed that the men should cook their food up as a soup and most doctors perscribed a mixture of ipecac and opium that cured the symptoms but left the soldier so weak and dyhydrated that he usually picked up more dieases resulting in more opium and the use of bleeding
-opium and alcohol only drugs used to lessen pain
=quinine one of the few effective drugs, used against malaria
-calomel (mercury based) and acetite of lead used for dysentry and artrite of ammonia (diarrhoea cure) were ineffective and overdoses often resulted in death
- at Sackett's Harbour dysentry came from bacterial infection (the Doctor identifies most of the problem but is ignored) – the water from the bread is drawn from Lake Ontario close to where the latrines overflow into the lake and nearby to a cementary containing hundreds of bodies buried very shallowly with the rain water filtering through the graves, out into the lake .....
- for most illnesses the doctors perscribed induced vomiting and laxatives in order to 'rid the body of the disease'; it would help in cases of food poisoning which did happen but otherwise just weakens the body and patient gets worse so he is then bled by instrument or leeches
-surgeons believed that health was a balance of 'humours' which were the components of blood and that sickness was a result of an imbalance so bleeding would restore the humours (but often killed the patient)
-wounded men were taken to a first aid station, if there were enough doctors – rarely- it would be a little distance behind the colours (flags) but usually well behind the lines
-non-walking wounded would be carried back on improvised stretchers by musicians or milita if available; tried to avoid regular soldiers helping friends back as they might not come back to the battle
-wounded men sent back to hospitals eventually with a few female hospital matrons (messy and thankless tasks for them)
-each regiment had 1 surgeon and two surgeon's mates; few university trained surgeons, many learned as apprentices and not well prepared
-wounds to the chest or stomach were usually fatal, surgeons could not put organs back together and dirthy hands, instruments and no antibiotics almost always meant infection so surgeon would not explore past the depth of a finger; infection usually lead to a lingering and feverish death
-for other parts of the body, the surgeon would probe the damage, drain any areas under pressure from fluid buildup (including trepanning the drilling of holes in the skull); would sitch up flesh wounds, tools would be at home in a mechanic's toolchest
-amputation increased the chance of survival because jagged and complex wounds became simple ones and risk of infection was decreased; surgeons too busy to save limbs; William Dunlop surgeon to a British regiment had to nearly 200 amputations after the Battle of Chippawa
-amputation procedure – patient given a shot of whiskey or a few grains of opium to numb the pain unless not available then a musket ball to clamp between his teeth; a tourniquet was used to limit bleeding just above where amputation done, surgeon's mate held limb steady with both hands; surgeon made an incision to reveal the muscles and then swiftly cut through them and the tendons down to the bone which resulted in a gush of blood from below the wound, when there was room enough for the blade the saw was used to cut off the bone quickly before the patient bled to death, a few seconds of cutting and a little tug and the bone gone with then tying up the arteriesand washing away clotted blood followed by folding over flaps of flesh, skin and muscle into a blunt stum and fastened with adhesive plaster – an experienced and talented surgeon could do the whole process in under a minute - a lucky patient would pass out from the pain and not swallow the musket ball
-40-60% of amputees survived
-British musket ball could penetrate at 30 metres a centimetre thick piece of iron or 12.5 cm of oak, which meant it would break large bones and destroy major joints; at medium ranges the soft lead balls would fragment causing massive cone shaped wounds, at over 200 metres the power was greatly reduced and bibles, watches, etc could stop the ball from making a wound
Equipment: set of surgeon's implements, fake limbs, bowls for washing surgeon's hand, apron (bloodstained for surgeon), musket balls, ripped and bloody shirt.
Military medicine and surgery notes
Military medicine and surgery
-about 75% of military deaths due to disease
lack of fresh food and vegetables could lead to scurvy, diet often monotonous and low in nutrients, lack of nutrients showed up in bones but lack of sugars meant lack of cavities but poor dental hygiene meant abcesses and tooth ache that could lead to teeth being pulled
- even in barracks some bad sanitary practices as communal tub used for waste instead of individual chamber pots, this tub would be emptied and filled with water and used for washing up in the morning; the result was a high rate of eye infections
-misconception that dampness was a cause of disease so people rarely washed or washed their quarters, US general Winfield Scott was ahead of his time and ordered his men to bathe 3 times per week in the lake, not the creek where they got their drinking water and tents to be aired and officers to inspect the men's food before they ate (Scott's nickname was 'Old Fuss and Feathers' but the men's health improved
-sanitary conditions were poor in military camps so many soldiers died of disease or were too sick to fight
-dysentry was a summer disease that afflicted 1/3rd or more of the American army depending on the camp's location – Sackett's Harbour being the most notorious (dysentry is an infection of the intestines resulting in hours long episodes of diarrhea – mixed with blood, pus and mucus – the result can be dehydration that can kill a person)
-the American doctor at the base perscribed that the men should cook their food up as a soup and most doctors perscribed a mixture of ipecac and opium that cured the symptoms but left the soldier so weak and dyhydrated that he usually picked up more dieases resulting in more opium and the use of bleeding
-opium and alcohol only drugs used to lessen pain
=quinine one of the few effective drugs, used against malaria
-calomel (mercury based) and acetite of lead used for dysentry and artrite of ammonia (diarrhoea cure) were ineffective and overdoses often resulted in death
- at Sackett's Harbour dysentry came from bacterial infection (the Doctor identifies most of the problem but is ignored) – the water from the bread is drawn from Lake Ontario close to where the latrines overflow into the lake and nearby to a cementary containing hundreds of bodies buried very shallowly with the rain water filtering through the graves, out into the lake .....
- for most illnesses the doctors perscribed induced vomiting and laxatives in order to 'rid the body of the disease'; it would help in cases of food poisoning which did happen but otherwise just weakens the body and patient gets worse so he is then bled by instrument or leeches
-surgeons believed that health was a balance of 'humours' which were the components of blood and that sickness was a result of an imbalance so bleeding would restore the humours (but often killed the patient)
-wounded men were taken to a first aid station, if there were enough doctors – rarely- it would be a little distance behind the colours (flags) but usually well behind the lines
-non-walking wounded would be carried back on improvised stretchers by musicians or milita if available; tried to avoid regular soldiers helping friends back as they might not come back to the battle
-wounded men sent back to hospitals eventually with a few female hospital matrons (messy and thankless tasks for them)
-each regiment had 1 surgeon and two surgeon's mates; few university trained surgeons, many learned as apprentices and not well prepared
-wounds to the chest or stomach were usually fatal, surgeons could not put organs back together and dirthy hands, instruments and no antibiotics almost always meant infection so surgeon would not explore past the depth of a finger; infection usually lead to a lingering and feverish death
-for other parts of the body, the surgeon would probe the damage, drain any areas under pressure from fluid buildup (including trepanning the drilling of holes in the skull); would sitch up flesh wounds, tools would be at home in a mechanic's toolchest
-amputation increased the chance of survival because jagged and complex wounds became simple ones and risk of infection was decreased; surgeons too busy to save limbs; William Dunlop surgeon to a British regiment had to nearly 200 amputations after the Battle of Chippawa
-amputation procedure – patient given a shot of whiskey or a few grains of opium to numb the pain unless not available then a musket ball to clamp between his teeth; a tourniquet was used to limit bleeding just above where amputation done, surgeon's mate held limb steady with both hands; surgeon made an incision to reveal the muscles and then swiftly cut through them and the tendons down to the bone which resulted in a gush of blood from below the wound, when there was room enough for the blade the saw was used to cut off the bone quickly before the patient bled to death, a few seconds of cutting and a little tug and the bone gone with then tying up the arteriesand washing away clotted blood followed by folding over flaps of flesh, skin and muscle into a blunt stum and fastened with adhesive plaster – an experienced and talented surgeon could do the whole process in under a minute - a lucky patient would pass out from the pain and not swallow the musket ball
-40-60% of amputees survived
-British musket ball could penetrate at 30 metres a centimetre thick piece of iron or 12.5 cm of oak, which meant it would break large bones and destroy major joints; at medium ranges the soft lead balls would fragment causing massive cone shaped wounds, at over 200 metres the power was greatly reduced and bibles, watches, etc could stop the ball from making a wound