The ABJS presidential lecture, June 2004: our orthopaedic heritage: the American Civil War

War, considered to be one of the greatest causes of human suffering, often spurs some of the greatest advances in medical treatments. In the United States, the Civil War was a catalyst for the development of trauma management, including general wound management, amputation techniques, triage, and transportation of wounded soldiers. The War, by necessity, also accelerated surgical knowledge and treatment of gunshot wounds of the extremities more than any previous event. The War also served as the impetus for the specialization of surgical skills, hospital systems, and medical data collection. Orthopaedic surgery, at the time of the War, was not as yet a recognized specialty in the United States. However, the Civil War played an important role in the specialty's heritage and the creation of specialty orthopaedic and prosthetic hospitals. Although many discoveries in the area of orthopaedic surgery were not discovered until the 20th century, many basic orthopaedic procedures and techniques were developed during this war that continue to be used today, including Buck's traction, plaster splints, and open treatment of contaminated wounds. The first recorded attempts at open reduction-internal fixation techniques for gunshot fractures occurred during the War. Resection arthroplasties, shell and bone fragment extraction, and various types of amputation were improved because of the large numbers of casualties.