When we are to think about all the medical attention we receive today, and what is available to us most of us don't realize what kind of advances have been made and how extraordinary it is that when we need the flu shot, or have a broken bone, or need stitches all of those are able to be taken care of. Throughout the Civil War, many deaths occurred because of something as simple as sanitation issues. However, sanitation is in a way simple to us now because we have a way to make sure everything is clean and sheets can be changed and instruments can be cleaned, but during the Civil War sanitation was in no way simple. I find it really interesting that what we are concerned with today concerning medicine is vastly different compared to what the doctors and nurses during the Civil War were worried about. But its not because those doctors and nurses were unequipped, although some were, but it was because the knowledge of medicine that is available to us now, they didn't have the slightest inkling of.
During the Civil War the hospital ended with a drastically different role than it began with. At the beginning of the war the hospital was not a place for the wealthy or the mildly sick, but as the war progressed the hospital was used for soldiers and the wounded and its goal was to try and heal them to send them back off to war as soon as possible. Also most of the people who were getting wounded were males. Males were not used to being sick or wounded and not being at home to have their wife/mother/sister care for them. During the war men would have to remember to shower and eat healthy and all the necessary things a sick/wounded person must do to get better.
There were many other topics that Humphreys touched on throughout the intro to chapter three but these were just a couple that I found the most interesting!
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