During the Civil War one of the major contribution to casualties were caused by disease. Disease in fact, started to become an epidemic and be more deadly then the flying bullets from enemy lines. Being that the hardest battle was fought within your territory, medical departments couldn’t find the solution to the body eating infections. As the war progressed, the incidence of disease decreased in some areas. Contributing to this decline was the increased number of seasoned veterans who had never been vulnerable to disease or who had survived its onset to become immune to it. Yet disease rates could vary markedly from region to region or from army to army. As an example, though both units reported their camps as clean, the 12th Massachusetts Infantry had a disease rate of 4 per 1,000 in 1862 compared to the 5th Vermont Infantry’s 271 per 1,000. Also, a region and its climate greatly influenced the occurrence of sickness. Union soldiers who campaigned in the South suffered an alarming increase in mortality rates because malaria and dysentery thrived in the hot and humid climate. Complicated enough no one thought the simplest medical devices that seem to be so little could caused such an impact. These “procedures” known as washing your hand helped decrease the death by disease ratio. During this time period money was not put fourth towards educating doctors and nurses about the connection between sanitation and general health. Most of the medical tactics were performed by doctors that figured their theory “worked the best”. Erica Norwood

During this time period U.S. Sanitation begins to play the most important role during the war which was promoting healthy living conditions, which became a material goal for both Confederates and Union. After the shooting had stopped, disease carried on its grim work when soldiers returned home with illnesses alien to different regions, thus to infect countless civilians. The medical profession would learn invaluable lessons from the war, but the cost of that education was exceedingly high. Life after the Civil War started to look a little brighter due to the fact that the government realized that the reason for disease was its cost to prevent it. For the following years to come the government made it priority to educated the basic health hazards such as washing hands, and made it clear that you can only operate on humans with a permit that still to this day will cost one for an arm and leg. Most diseases traveled by rail road Disease. (2000). In Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History. Retrieved from (Work Cited)