FWIW, improved trauma treatment has played some considerable role in the drop in the murder rate.
I’ve seen estimates that if emergency medicine was still operating at 1960 levels of effectiveness the murder rate would be two to three times higher. I’d suggest that the assault and assault with intent to kill statistics give a more accurate picture of the violence level.
Just as the relatively low death toll for our military in Iraq says more about the effectiveness of the medical treatment they receive than about the comparative violence of the combat. Compared to previous wars, of course.
Had 2010 medicine been available for our civil war, the total deaths would have been somewhere under 150,000 rather than the actual 640,000.
I hadn’t thought of that- good comment
Of course, if we’d had 2010 medicine available for our civil war, we’d also have had 2010 military tech, and it would have been a whole different war. MOABs used on Richmond, for examples.
That’s the problem with counter-factuals.
“Had 2010 medicine been available for our civil war, the total deaths would have been somewhere under 150,000 rather than the actual 640,000.”
I don’t know what the actual numbers would have been, but I do know that sickness killed a hell of a lot of those 640,000 troops.
The TV series “Emergency!” (1972-1979) was all about the exciting new idea that there should be paramedics who were allowed to actually treat the injured on the trip to the hospital!
It was cutting edge stuff.
State laws had to be changed to allow the treatment without a doctor in the ambulance.
Very good points!