November 2014 CE

| The Surgical Technologist | NOVEMBER 2014 502 amputation was 10 to 15 minutes. There were three different tech- niques utilized for amputations: the oval technique, the circular incision and the f lap operation. Most surgeons used the flap tech- nique because it provided a cushion for future fittings for a prosthetic device. When the patient was strong enough to travel, they were sent to a military hospital or returned to their home for recuperation. O P E N R E D U C T I O N I N T E R N A L F I X A T I O N According to Kuz, during the Civil War the first attempts to perform an open resection internal fixation of fractured bones were performed by Dr Benjamin Howard. He has been credited with performing three of the four recorded such cases. To further complicate his efforts, he performed the surgery while the wounded soldier was still on the battlefield. Dr Howard felt there was too much pain experienced by wounded soldiers as they were transported to the field hospital. He also felt that there was the potential for further damage if soldier’s bro- ken bones were not stabilized. He proposed his method would help prevent, “Such painful and danger- ous motion of the fractured ends of the bone en route to general hospital.” His method consisted of enlarging the wound for adequate access, and then he “removed all the detritus and loose fragments … .” Dr Howard then matured the ends of the fractured bones by using a metacarpal Alfred A Stratton lost both his arms at age 19 on June 18, 1864, by a cannon shot during the American Civil War. The amputation was performed by AS Coe. Stratton died as a father of two at the age of 29. The after-effects of the Civil War produced a vast demand for artificial limbs. It was reported that around 35,000 survivors were amputees. 1