Civil War Medicine

Well, musket ball doesnt leave a neat little hole you can stitch up, relatively easily. It tends to tumble and deform, taking chunks of whatever you hit. That said, the U.S. civil war did produce medical advancement, mostly in the prosthetic department, but still.

Youre in luck, son! The doc says its only a flesh wound... for the saw.

If our modern surgical teams were present on Civil War battlefields, they would probably still be forced to amputate in most cases. Heavy, soft lead balls inflict such devastating wounds that there isn’t much chance of saving a limb shattered by one. It’s also worth noting that the amputation procedure used in the Civil War is pretty similar to what is used today, so Civil War surgeons knew what they were doing. The only big differences between then and now are the advent of germ theory and the discovery of antibiotics. Civil War hospitals were unhygienic by modern standards which led to many infections that they couldn’t treat, but otherwise they were staffed by generally competent and experienced surgeons, especially as the war progressed.

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