Spanish American W ar & WWI Mary Murad & Sandra Haggerty
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Spanish American War
& WWIMary Murad & Sandra Haggerty
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• April-August 1898• Spain declared war on the U.S. because the U.S. supported
Cuba's wish to be independent of Spanish rule.
• “Remember the Maine!”: War slogan, a submarine mine
exploded in Havana Harbor in Cuba, sinking the U.S. battleshipMaine and killing 260 servicemen.
• The Treaty of Paris was signed in 1898
Spanish American War
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Spanish American War & Nursing
•
Nurses serving aboard thehospital ship RELIEF
• Poor sanitation and Disease in
Army camps
• Women nurses employed to
work in Cuba, military hospitals,
and U.S. hospital ships
• Untrained nurses and
volunteers all helped in the war
effort• Typhoid fever, Yellow Fever,
Malaria
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Hospital Ship RELIEF in Cuban Waters Operating
Room
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Spanish American War & Nursing
• Many soldiers required hospitalization at home
• More deaths due to illness and disease compared to
battle injuries• Nursing corps post war: increase in the number of women
nurses
• Later large decrease due to unsupportive military leaders
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Spanish American War
Nurse Clara Maass died as a
result of yellow fever. Army
Contract Nurse Maass
volunteered to participate in
an experimental treatment
program,after having
survived the war. A stampwas issued in her honor in
1976.
Clara Maass
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Nursing during World War I: 1914-1918
• More than 21,000 women enlisted in the U.S. Army during
World War I to serve as uniformed nurses. Nearly half of them
served in overseas locations.
• The mass deployment of nurses during World War I removed
them from a structured professional culture and thrust theminto an unfamiliar world of warfare where they became part of
a team.
• Nurses served in base hospitals, Convalescent (evacuation)
hospitals, casualty clearing stations (triage), trains, and
transport planes
• Nursing during WWI led to many advancements in medicine
and nursing care.
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Nursing during World War I: Trench Warfare
The use of trench warfare during the war led to spread of many diseases and
other health concerns. Trench warfare often led to stalemates that triggered
many more casualties from vermin, disease, trench fever, trench foot, and
dysentary.
• Living in trenches meant battling vermin such as rats and lice. Rats were
large and very bold while lice ran rampant in the camps. Soldiers would
either pick the lice off or burn them off with a lighter.
• Trench fever caused a “shooting pain in the chin followed by a very high
fever.” Trench fever accounted for 15% of all cases of sickness in the
British army.
• Trench foot was caused by standing and fighting in trenches saturated
with water and mud. Feet would go numb, turn red and eventually blue.If left untreated, toes and sometimes whole foot could turn gangrenous.
• Dysentary was caused when soldiers either ended up fighting or hiding
in the latrines dug within the trenches. Bacteria from the feces
contaminated food and water which caused inflammation of the bowel,
stomach pains, diarrhea, vomiting and fever.
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Nursing during World War I: Trenches
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Nursing during World War I: Volunteers
By 1914, the British army had formed an
elite corps of army nurses. Many youngwomen convinced parents to allow
them to join the Red Cross to “improve
their domestic skills.” These volunteers
were organized into groups under the
Voluntary Aid Detachments which was
managed by the Red Cross. Eventually
volunteers were sent to serve in France
and Belgium primarily as nurses
assistants.
American women began to volunteer
through the British Red Cross primarily
as nurses and orderlies.
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Nursing during World War I: Nursing Progress
The war led to improvements in educational requirements and training programs for
nurses in America. It also helped to establish acceptance and respect for women inthe profession. Training of nurses before this time emphasized the handmaiden
approach to nursing which emphasized the role of nurses as a handmaiden (servant)
to the physician and following WWI, nurses began to be seen as equal members of the
team.
Criteria for becoming a nurse also became morestrict:
• Nurses could not be married
• Had to be a graduate from an approved school
of nursing
• Had to be female –
males were not accepted• Had to be between ages of 25-35
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Nursing during World War I: Medical
Advancements
• Concept of triage introduced: Casualty clearing stations used an Order of
Evacuation as guideline if necessary to move the station – had a way or
sorting injuries and expected outcomes to maximize the number of
survivors.
• Anesthesia: chloroform was primary anesthetic agent at beginning of warand was found to be potentially toxic. Eventually surgeons found a safer and
more effective agent that was a mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen that
was easily controlled by stopping the gas.
•Infection Control: Dr. Theodore-Marin Tuffier performed wide debridementof the infected area in an attempt to avoid amputation – found that
immediately removing dead and damaged flesh helped prevent infection
and gas gangrene. Also followed practice of inserting drains that provided
constant irrigation.
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Nursing during World War I: Medical
Advancements
Skin grafting: Tuffier’s debridement methods led to development of skin
grafting – large debrided wounds took months to heal from inside out and the
healing process could be expedited if the wound was protected by skin.
Blood Typing: Karl Landsteiner, a biochemist and pathologist working in
United States, discovered blood groups in 1901 and the importance of
matching blood groups between donors and recipients. American physicians
and nurses introduced Landsteiners work in early 1915.
Prothetics: Loss of jawbones, cheeks noses, eyes and ears left disfiguring holes
– specialists called in to create new nostrils, insert artificial eyes, or to repairor replace a shattered jaw.
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Nursing during World War I: Nursing care
• American, British and French women volunteered in mass numbers – many
giving up luxuries of a privileged life.
• They travelled with barest essentials to tend injured, sick and dying men.
• Nurses were forced to endure the harshest of environments, especially
during the frigid winters in Europe. Their ankles swelled, and their feetconstantly ached from standing in cold wet mud for hours.
• Nurses put themselves at risk for disease or injury, just as the soldiers did,
but without a weapon to defend themselves with or even the pay (many
were volunteers).
• There were no specialty divisions at the time: nurses assisted surgeons in
OR’s, in wards, removed blood encrusted uniforms, bathed the men,
administered blood, gave injections, monitored vitals, debrided, sutured and
dressed wounds as well as fed, read to and cradled the dying.
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Nursing and Women post World War I
War lead to more freedom for women. Thenumber of men at war meant women were
forced to take over work in factories and
farms.
Army and Navy nurse corps were fully
established and functioning – women’s
suffrage movement was in full swing
following the war – women who had given
up so much to serve alongside the soldiers
during the army felt they had a right to vote
and help determine future of the nation –
19th amendment signed into constitution in
1920.
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References
Feminist Review , No. 79, Latin America: History, war and independence(2005), pp. 20-35
Holder, V (2004). From Handmaiden to Right Hand: World War I and
Advancements in Medicine. AORN Journal, vol. 80 (5), pg. 911-923.
Holder, V (2004). From Handmaiden to Right Hand: World War I – The
Mud and the Blood . AORN Journal, vol 80 (4), pg. 652-665.
Kalish,P. and Kalish, B. (2004). American Nursing: A History (4th Ed). New
York, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
Lovett, C. (1998). Remembering the Maine: Teaching about the Spanish-
American.. Social Studies, 89(3), 123.