from pre-history to 20th century what progess happened in medicine because of war?

Answer 1

I would question some of Clive's statements. The treating of gunshot wound go back to the birth of fire arms them selves, and the wars fought since then.
Huge advances were made during:
the US civil war.
WW I
WW II
Korea
etc All those wars involved, millions of men and 100's of thousands of casualties, and they quickly learned prompt treatment led to a greater survivor rate.
Because of the huge numbers involved the surgeons learned to improve and improvise quickly and developed better techniques.

Ironical just before the US went to war in Iraq many of the military medical personnel were sent to several hospitals in the US that had high daily fire arm related incidents.
One of those Doctor said it was as close as they could come up with to give them a war zone, due to the US penchant for killing one another with fire arms

That may not go down too well with any Americans, but the truth often hurts

Answer 2

Quite a few advances were made in the field of medicine during times of war.

For example - it was discovered, quite by chance, during the Vietnam war, that if a wounded soldier was left unattended without a blanket, his survival rate was much higher than a wounded soldier who was wrapped in a blanket and kept warm. The cooling of the body slowed down the loss of blood and helped keep the soldier calm - often causing sleep.

During the IRA campaign in Northern Ireland [c1969-?] the doctors treating gun-shot wounds learnt more in those years than ever before at how to deal with these sorts of wounds. By the end of the IRA campaign, survival was very high indeed. The same result was shown for people in shock and those suffering blast wounds.

If you do not wish to know the truth, do not read the following.

During WW2, the Nazis, the SS doctors in the death camps, carried out thousands of medical experiments on their prisoners. These Nazi SS doctors kept meticulous records of what they did, the results of their 'research' and so on. All of this information has subsequently been used by the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession.

The above may come as a serious shock to some people. It is never the less the truth. What the medical benefits of these 'experiments' on living human beings may have been to medicine I cannot say, since I do not know.

Answer 3

Too numerous to mention such things has the fast production of penicilling was developed during the second world war to treat casualties,it was found RAF pilots who were badly burnt and crash into the sea suffered less than those who landed on dry ground so saline was found to be benifical in treating burns,RAF pilots were sometimes badly burnt so RAF plastic surgeons became extremly proficient in their techniques,GI's in the paddies and jungles of Viet Nam became infected because their dressings became wet and dirty so super glue was used to temporarily close wounds leading to todays chemical dressings.The list goes on.

Answer 4

Production methods got a lot faster.