Medical Inventions during World War II Have you ever gone to the doctor or to the hospital in need of help? Think of how many lives have been saved with the help of medicine, doctors, surgeons, and nurses. Without some of the medical inventions during World War II, you might not have been able to receive treatment and recover. It is important to understand how medical inventions and surgeries during World War II helped so many lives during the war and today. While World War II was occurring, scientists and doctors were discovering and inventing new medical advances to help soldiers who were fighting in the war. Some of the most helpful medicines today were invented during World War II. These include sulfanilamide, penicillin, atabrine, plasma, and morphine. Sulfanilamide and penicillin proved very useful for their ability to kill deadly, harmful bacteria. “Sulfanilamide was first mass distributed in 1936 to fight not only strep infections but also meningitis and pneumonia, which had been killing and weakening tens of thousands of …show more content…
World War II provided a huge backdrop for a major expansion and improvements in the medical field. Medical inventions like sulfanilamide saved plenty of lives during the war and many historians credit the invention with helping allied forces win World War II. With penicillin, the chance of wound infections for soldiers vastly reduced, so survival rates also raised. Plasma was also of very great usage because 15,000 units of plasma were distributed in just five months of the war! Microscopes were also created and they opened up a new perspective in the medical field. They created new possibilities for surgeries involving the heart, ear, and other potentially problematic areas. The new medical inventions for the war saved many lives and still continue to be widely used
Eddie Rickenbacker World War I changed the way war was viewed and fought forever. New technologies, such as planes, developed along with new strategies to win battles. Two famous American soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for their heroic contributions to American air power during World War I; Frank Luke Jr. (1897-1918) and Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973). Although Frank Luke Jr. served gallantly for his country, Eddie Rickenbacker made the more valuable contribution to the American war effort during World War I by being more talented, displaying daring courage, and finally having the will to continue to survive. Both Frank Luke Jr. and Eddie Rickenbacker showed fantastic talent by learning to fly to the first aircraft created for war.
With a 90% attributed casualty rate to the Minie Ball innovation, leaders had no ethical choice than to modify the tactics and doctrine for the current modern warfare (C}. The casualties sustained in Napoleonic style fighting using the Minie Ball was unacceptable by any means shown through the carnage produced during the war (F}. When it comes to the closure of a sucking chest wound, the procedure was adopted by surgeons across the American Civil War Theater as the way to treat the sucking chest wound (D). Anything less than applying the principles of this treatment would have left a patient knocking at deaths door, an ethical dilemma no surgeon would want to be in with an innovation proven to counter this
The military needed all the doctors they could obtain to help their country during the times of hardship. It was then that Frederick Banting started to work in a military hospital in England helping many of the wounded soldiers daily. He also developed an interest in surgery and research while working in the hospital. In 1918, it Banting progressed from his position at the medical hospital and was sent over to France as a battalion medical officer. It was from that position that he was able to see how gruesome the war really was, witnessing all sorts of heavy action in the last battles of the war.
In addition to their medical uses, the Axis forces used corticosteroids as a chemical weapon during the Battle of the Bulge. Inventions that Changed the Course of the War World War II (WWII) was one of the most devastating wars in human history. It caused millions of casualties and massive destruction and changed the geopolitical landscape of the world (Gross, 2019). During this time, some of the greatest minds put their heads together to develop inventions that would help the Allied forces gain an advantage over the Axis forces. Many of these inventions were used to improve military tactics, communications, transportation, and weaponry.
The nature of World War 1 was affected by many factors that achieved to alter the way it played out. Two of those major influences were leadership and technology. Although the improvement of war technologies where important. It is believed that leadership had a bigger impact on World War 1 than technologies did. I personally follow that believe.
Twenty years prior to the war, the first form of anesthesia was used on a patient in order to remove a tumor from their neck. The use of anesthetics was scarce, only until its use skyrocketed during the course of the Civil War. Anesthesia brought new opportunities for medical workers to use on their wounded patients. The Union and Confederate armies both benefited dramatically from the introduction of chloroform: it was non-flammable and allowed surgeons to perform various procedures on soldiers by reducing pain quickly, and
The Civil War was filled with many diseases and deaths. Over 620,000 men lost their lives during this war; roughly two thirds of the casualties were caused by the lack of medical knowledge of many diseases. The remaining one third of the casualties was from the actual battle itself. The war became a turning point for many women interested in the medical field. The knowledge of medicine was the beginning of a new age during the Civil War, and the lack of it led to many gruesome deaths.
Another invention that helped us revolutionize how we fight this war is the telegraph. This invention is the most useful that we’ve used throughout this war. This invention allows our generals to communicate almost instantly, becoming very useful during times of crisis during this war. This invention was made by Samuel Morse. Soon after its debut, there were over 15,000 miles of telegraph cables put up.
Technology throughout the years has been dramatically advancing due to the encounters that countries have faced during war. This can be seen during WW1 in where many technological advancements had to be made for countries to claim their victories against its combatants. Weapons and other developments that were made during this time period of the war, have drastically changed warfare tactics and the medical field. Tanks, Machine Guns, and Chemical Warfare were only a few of the technological advancements that were made during WW1 for the efficiency of combat. These pieces of artillery brought severely pain, injuries and death to its enemies, bringing the victory to its manipulators.
However, during the nineteenth century medical practice advanced substantially. The invention of procedures such as the speculum and D&C (dilation and curettage) along with people learning about the dangers of bacterial infections are presumably the most significant ones. In addition to this new techniques involving usage of anesthesia surfaced. It was, for the first time in history, possible to perform safe abortions and yet — along with these improvements — came the criminalization of abortion.
During the First World War, many important technological inventions were created. These inventions altered the way the Great War was fought. There are three inventions during World War One that impacted the development of the war. Tanks, aircraft, and machine guns all had an important use in the First World War. Tanks were the most important invention because of their ability to destroy, be defensive, and its mobility.
Harvey had a huge impact on health and medicine because his discoveries helped in future life, and without him blood transfusions wouldn 't be possible today. He saved no lives but he showed other people how to save lives. Another important change in health and medicine was in the understanding of surgery. Ambroise Pare was a surgeon who followed Vesalius’s findings for example books and notes.
They accurately drew all of the organs, bones and muscles which lead to a huge progress in the medical field. The hospitals also advanced a lot during the Renaissance. The huge improvement in the medical field started during the Renaissance. As mentioned, many of the remedies and other health treatment were only thought to help, and not proven to do so, such as bloodletting.
March 9, 2017 Aspen Wayment History of Physician Assistants There were many events leading up to the origination of the physician assistant. The military necessity in times of war was one of these events that induced the use of “non-physicians” and helped pave a pathway for physician assistants. In 1940 a highly respected physician trained his own “doctor’s assistant” to tend his patients while he was away receiving further medical education. This event was a major success and a brief example of what was to come a mere fifteen years later.
In the speech, “Remarks at the Dedication of the Aerospace Medical Health Center” by J.F.K., he states, “...medical space research may revolutionize the technology and techniques of modern medicine. Whatever new devices are created, for example, to monitor our astronauts, to measure their heart activity, their breathing,...will also represent a major advance in general medical instrumentation” (Kennedy 187). In the evidence, J.F.K. proves how the inventions created for space travel will also advance technologies for the everyday citizens of Earth. This means that more people would be able to be treated by these new inventions, otherwise unthought of if not for space exploration.