BULLET PROBES

During the American Civil War, bullet wounds were one of the most prominent injuries and causes of death due to the spread of diseases via infected bullet wounds. This was because new advancements in bullet technology, such as the development of round cone-shaped bullets, made such injuries increasingly lethal. Because the lack of X-ray technology meant that surgeons had no way to determine bullet track and dispersal in wounds, that ultimately led to them quickly innovating and experimenting new surgical procedures on patients despite their relative inexperience treating the massive patient stream.

This led to them choosing to use bullet probes to remove bullets from wounds due to the fear of the possibility of poisoning via the foreign bullet material. Long, thin bullet extractors would be used to exert maximum force at the tip in order to grab and remove the bullet. There were various designs of bullet probes used during the conflict, such as Gross, Tiemann, and Collins, that were used for these surgeries.

For the patient, surgeries could be extremely painful due to the fact that anesthesia was not always available to be used during these surgeries, meaning some battlefield allowances had to be made. For example, surgeons experimented on patients with either alcohol, or in the worst case, a leather strap, bite block, or bullet was provided for them to bite on in order to muffle pain. This combined with unsanitary environments meant that the patient would catch contagious infections, thus increasing the chance of dying.

References

Allen, N. (2019). Surgery in the American Civil War. TOTA. Retrieved from 

           https://www.tota.world/article/1668

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Civil War Bullets, Probes, and Extractors - Civil War Medicine. CIVIL WAR 

           MEDICAL BOOKS. (2015, July 24). Retrieved from 

           http://www.civilwarmedicalbooks.com/civil_war_bullets.html