(great start, but you need QUOTES!!!! and citations! (you need a primary source document that you need to translate, you also need an answer to your question or at least a grading checklist)

Meds and the Civil War

Most people think that back in that time, they didnt have much for medical technology.

One thing that they had were anesthetics. They used to use Chloroform and Ether to knock out the patient.

Chloroform was discovered to be an anesthetic by James Young Simpson. He and his colleagues were testing mixed chemical compounds to see if they would have an anesthetic effect. When he tested chloroform, he thought he had found a very good anesthetic.  How they administered it was they would pour it into a cone chaped peice of rag or cotton and put it over the patients mouth and nose. They say that the chloroform worked very well when having an operation done such as getting a leg or arm sawed off.

http://www.braceface.com/medical/Civil_War_Articles/Chloroform_and_the_Civil_War.htm

This was a mask they used to administer the chloroform and ether.

http://www.general-anaesthesia.com/images/chloroform-mask.jpg

How a Civil War Amputation Was Performed

The page that will make you thankful you live in the 21st century and not the middle of the 19th century.

This page contains a description (warning to those easily disturbed by such: the descriptions are in "graphic" language) of the most common Civil War surgery, the amputation. A few words about why there were so many amputations may be appropriate here. Many people have construed the Civil War surgeon to be a heartless indivdual or who was somehow incompetent and that was the reason for the great number of amputations performed. This is false. The medical director of the Army of the Potomac, Dr. Jonathan Letterman, wrote in his report after the battle of Antietam,

The surgery of these battle-fields has been pronounced butchery. Gross misrepresentations of the conduct of medical officers have been made and scattered broadcast over the country, causing deep and heart-rending anxiety to those who had friends or relatives in the army, who might at any moment require the services of a surgeon.

It is not to be supposed that there were no incompetent surgeons in the army. It is certainly true that there were; but these sweeping denunciations against a class of men who will favorably compare with the military surgeons of any country, because of the incompetency and short-comings of a few, are wrong, and do injustice to a body of men who have labored faithfully and well.

http://www.huntermcguire.goellnitz.org/amputation.html

1.How were amputations done in the Civil War?

     The amputtations ib the Civil war were alot different then now a days. Back then it was a saw and about four or five people holding you down as somesle saws your leg or arm or whatever.

2. Why were amputatiobns done in the war?

     Because when people in the war got hurt they could still have a chance of living from it, but most of the people died from it. They also didn't have the technology we have now a days.

What were the devices used to administer the anesthetics described to look like?

  The things they used to give them the anesthetic looked like a cone shaped peice of cloth that was placed over a metal framing type thing.

How were they administered?

     They would dip the piece of cloth, sometimes it was cotton, then covered the patients mouth with the cone shaped thing, then the chemicals would knock them out.