Conclusion

The American Revolution was not only a time of political and military trouble but also a critical time for the development of medical practices, particularly in surgery, illnesses, and remedies. Surgeons during this era faced monumental challenges, including limited knowledge, poor conditions, and a lack of proper tools and medicine. Many procedures were performed with little understanding of infection, effective surgical techniques, and soldiers often died from both wounds and their treatments. Despite these struggles, the experiences of military surgeons and physicians laid the foundations for the advances in medical practices that would shape future medicine.

This exhibit explores the evolution of surgery and knowledge of medicine during the Revolutionary War, focusing on the continous work to improve medical treatments by surgeons such as Dominique-Jean Larrey and John Jones. Larray documented his findings on surgeries during battle and how they were to be performed, such as amputations. Jones, a professor of surgery at King's College in New York and veteran of the French and Indian War gave crucial knowledge to new surgeons regarding treatments of common wounds from the battlefield.

As the war progressed, surgeons and physicians began to gain more knowledge of effective medicine. The impact of diseases such as smallpox on soldiers were fought by surgeons and military physicians such as Robert Jackson and John Pringle, who called for the need for space in general hospitals to avoid deadly illnesses to be spread and for hospital conditions to improve to reduce mortality. Surgeons began to slowly understand the importance of fighting infectious diseases, maintining sterile environments in hospitals, and effective techniques to increase the success of surgeries as well as treatments for common wounds. These efforts of surgeons in the hospitals and battlefields led to valuable changes in medical practices and led to the development of modern medicine. While the medical knowledge and information at the time was far from perfect, the information and techniques developed during the American Revolution led to improvements in healthcare and surgery in the years that followed.