# War wounds



## TheokinsJ (Apr 16, 2013)

I've posted a similar topic a long time ago, but now I thought I'd delve deeper into researching this sort of thing. A thousand years ago (middle ages), what would the medical practice have been like for wounds? I mean, in terms of say, you lose an eye (you're slashed in the face by a sword, for example), how would you go about treating it? My character in my WIP loses an eye, and it's gone for good. He doesn't physically lose his eye, merely his sight in it. What would happen to the eye? Would it merely be bandaged over? Or would surgeons at the time be bold enough to try to remove it or something? Just asking what people think, and if there are any doctors or people with an opinion, who could also clarify if say, your eye is scratched badly, would you lose your sight?


----------



## SeverinR (Apr 16, 2013)

Haven't studied specific times, but no antibiotics, so a clean dressing to slow drainage of a wound, red hot metal to cauterize a wound.
If the blind eye wasn't draining, leave it alone.  
*******not for the squeemish*****

Scratched cornea, typically it will get infected, no antibiotics, so they might try flushing it with clean water, or worse they might flush it with contaminated water, worse infection.  
Symptoms: Eye burns and itches, drains green thick mucous, as infection sinks in, the eye swells and pain trumps itch, the fluid of the eye fills with infection and blindness becomes permanent,  The fluid of the eye is controlled and flows in and out, so
the infection will flow into the blood stream or into the brain causing sepsis(blood infection) or meningitis(brain infection) both will kill. So sometime between eye swelling and eye filling with puss, the eye will be removed to save the life.
Not sure if it would be burned out or cut out. Niether is pleasant as there was no anesthesia, just alcohol to take the edge off.
If the infection could be stopped, the person would wear a patch over the eye.

Prior to antibiotics, any scratch could be life threatening, but conversely they had very strong immune systems.  They had to endure every infection, cold, or flu.  Open stomach wound was commonly a slow death sentence.

The immune system back in the day could be enough to stop an infection so take it as far as needed in your story. But also know it could also kill just as easily.

I think the Ancient Greeks did do surgery, and some lived, but alot died.  Field medicine was nothing more then dressings and saws. Saws were for limbs that lost their blood supply, or so badly damaged it couldn't be saved, because gangrene would set in and poison the body. So it had to be removed.


----------



## Abbas-Al-Morim (Apr 16, 2013)

There was surgery in medieval times (even brain surgery). Often, the procedure failed, but there were people who had part of their skull removed (for instance after a fracture, to clean out the splinters) and managed to survive the procedure and live with a hole in their head. 

Surgeons and doctors didn't know hygiene is crucially important until much later. A lot of physicians were quacks too or they believed in very questionable procedures. The two most commonly known are leeching blood (to level out the different humors) and dung poultices. The latter - needless to say - was really idiotic as it made the wound fester and rot. The former... just as bad actually. Leeching blood of an already weakened person won't help him recover.


----------



## Alexandra (Apr 16, 2013)

Abbas-Al-Morim said:


> Leeching blood of an already weakened person won't help him recover.



That depends. In antiquity leeches (if available) were used to treat wounds caused by poisoned weapons, arrows specifically, to draw out imbalanced humors (humors had to remain in proper balance to maintain health) and, if used quickly enough, they may have worked because the leeches sucked out the poison, not the humors. The poison, commonly snake venom, did not necessarily kill the leeches because most, if not all, snake venom has be introduced into the victim's bloodstream to be effective.


----------



## CupofJoe (Apr 17, 2013)

It doesn't take much to make an eye "blind", so it it very plausible that someone could loose their sight and keep their eye, even a relatively normal looking eye. 
Traumatic Cataracts "occur secondary to blunt or penetrating ocular trauma" [getting something stuck in to your eye!] and that could leave you unsighted but with an okay looking eye. While it is usually associated with radiation and lasers almost any significant enough injury [such as bomb blasts, shrapnel, and even splinters] can lead to them.
If you want to lose the eye...
Maggots were and are used to eat away [abrade - technical term?] dead tissue to leave a clean wound. Drop a few into a muslin cloth and stuff in to the eye socket. 
I think it takes a day or so for the maggots to eat away the dead flesh and leave the fresh and pink stuff...
 Glass, stone and ceramic eyes were not unknown in the middle ages and before. And I seem to remember reading that someone had a wooden false eye...


----------



## Abbas-Al-Morim (Apr 17, 2013)

Alexandra said:


> That depends. In antiquity leeches (if available) were used to treat wounds caused by poisoned weapons, arrows specifically, to draw out imbalanced humors (humors had to remain in proper balance to maintain health) and, if used quickly enough, they may have worked because the leeches sucked out the poison, not the humors. The poison, commonly snake venom, did not necessarily kill the leeches because most, if not all, snake venom has be introduced into the victim's bloodstream to be effective.



Yes, it works if you use leeches. It does not work if you stick a needle in someone's arms to drain blood. That's what I meant by leeching blood.


----------



## SeverinR (Apr 17, 2013)

Leeches are used today for some procedures.
It all depends on what they are used for.
Maggots too.

Maggots and leeches of today are kept as clean "as possible", leeches back then were at best rinsed off. Not sure about maggots.
Those little suckers and maggots could introduce infection just like anything else that touched the wounds.  But the alternative was alot worse.


----------



## The Unseemly (Apr 17, 2013)

Well, most wounds (which were almost bound to get infected, due to the lack of antibiotics), usually got cut off. This was called being a doctor in the 16th century. As you can see, there's the awful flaw in the theory, as cutting off a bit of someone caused another wound, which, surprise, surprise, got infected again. Minor battle wounds could, and usually did, kill.

Of course, its not to say there weren't effective methods of treatment of wounds in the medieval ages. Middle Eastern/Arabic peoples used herbal medicine around this time. As a point of interest here: I believe this is were (particularly in the Crusades) the whole idea of "witch-doctors" got established, though I'm not exactly certain. The herbal medicine of the Middle Easterners actually _worked_ really efficiently. European doctors were arrogant, and believed that their method was the correct method of treating wounded patients: hereby, Middle Eastern medicine was witchery/magic, much like witches back in Europe used.


----------

