Civil War Vascular Injuries

Abstract

As the result of the insistence of the Surgeon General during the United States Civil War, there was extensive documentation of injuries to major blood vessels and their resulting complications. The specific treatment of vascular injuries during the Civil War was ligation of the injured vessel or amputation. This was before there was any knowledge of the cause and prevention of infection. Overall, the results were dismal, with a mortality rate of nearly 60% for the more than 1000 soldiers treated by arterial ligation. The most important contribution of these medical reports was to define how the injuries should be diagnosed and managed. Many of the principles that developed as the result of this post-war review are as valid today as they were then. Unfortunately, it seems that many of these lessons have had to be relearned by the surgeons who have participated in each of our subsequent military conflicts.