Perhaps the most basic problem facing physicians during wartime historically has been whether (and how) to transport the wounded to care or transport the caregivers to the wounded. A secondary problem historically has been how best to organize the delivery of care as modern nations began to dispatch vast armies and navies to fight across vast distances.įor example, Pikoulis et al.
reviewed the wounds depicted in The Iliad and determined the arrow wounds such as the one suffered by Menelaus carried a mortality rate of 42%, slingshot wounds 67%, spear wounds 80%, and sword wounds 100%. These high mortality rates suggest surgeons were unable to get to wounded soldiers during the melee, treating only the higher class or those who survived after the battle had concluded.
These Greek surgeons, whether they realized it or not, faced the same issues as all future practitioners engaged in wound care: wound management, The Golden Hour (the principle that a victim’s chances of survival are greatest if he receives resuscitation within the first hour after a severe injury), and infection control.ĭuring the American Revolution (1775–1783), the Continental Congress authorized one surgeon to serve in each regiment. Few of the regimental surgeons, mostly trained through the apprenticeship system as there were only two medical schools in the United States (King’s College in New York, NY, and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA), had any experience treating trauma.
The organization was minimal, and regimental surgeons tended to work for their unit instead of seeing themselves as part of the Hospital Department, which was rendered ineffective by bureaucratic infighting.
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