SKETCH OF WAR SURGERY IN NEW SPAIN TEACHING, SURGEONS AND WOUNDS IN THE INDEPENDENCE AND OTHER WARS

Abstract

With the introduction of firearms, theaters of battle radically changed the way warfare was waged, and with it came new types of bodily injury. During the so-called Napoleonic Wars, thousands of combatants were hit by rifle or artillery fire, dying instantly. The battle-wounded who survived were subject to the surgical treatments available to the medicine of the time in an effort to save their lives. Those in charge of carrying out these procedures were the war surgeons, and the case of New Spain was no exception. When the revolution for independence broke out in September 1810, surgeons accompanied the military in their counterinsurgency campaigns in order to treat the wounded in hospitals. This article briefly describes the clinical work carried out by surgeons from New Spain at the end of the 18th century and early 19th century, who had the difficult task of curing atrocious war injuries.