04-22-2002, 03:23 PM
There is no doubt that before the advent of antibiotics and other infection-fighting medecines, people ran greater risks of infections such as gangrene when wounded.<br>
Tiberius' brother Drusus died of gangrene after falling off his horse. This is quite illustrative of the limits of medecine at that time since Drusus, a high ranking person, had access to the best doctors of the time.<br>
Nowadays very few people die of gangrene after breaking a leg.<br>
Besides two front teeth probably lost in a barroom brawl, the soldier whose body was found at Herculanum had a abnormal lump in the femur, indicating a stab wound that had penetrated to the bone (a spear?) and which had healed quite nicely thanks to the strong health of that 30 years old fellow.<br>
But after reading the frightening descriptions of later pre-antibiotics fields of battle like the napoleonic wars or the american civil war, one can only figure that a great proportion of people died of wounds after the battle.<br>
They had no efficient aenesthetics or pain killers either, by the way... <p></p><i></i>
Tiberius' brother Drusus died of gangrene after falling off his horse. This is quite illustrative of the limits of medecine at that time since Drusus, a high ranking person, had access to the best doctors of the time.<br>
Nowadays very few people die of gangrene after breaking a leg.<br>
Besides two front teeth probably lost in a barroom brawl, the soldier whose body was found at Herculanum had a abnormal lump in the femur, indicating a stab wound that had penetrated to the bone (a spear?) and which had healed quite nicely thanks to the strong health of that 30 years old fellow.<br>
But after reading the frightening descriptions of later pre-antibiotics fields of battle like the napoleonic wars or the american civil war, one can only figure that a great proportion of people died of wounds after the battle.<br>
They had no efficient aenesthetics or pain killers either, by the way... <p></p><i></i>
