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Teacher Guide The goal of Ghost Hunter teacher guides is to help you make history come alive for your students. The activities are not designed to replace history textbooks or standard history curriculum. Rather, activities strive to supplement the curriculum by creating experiences that enable students to experience the life of a specific historical time and culture. With today’s technology, can students really comprehend what it was like to be a surgeon in the Civil War? To help students experience what it must have been like to treat the wounded in a dimly lighted basement with only primitive surgical instruments, try the TIME TRAVEL activity. TIME TRAVEL—A Step Back in Time Supplies:
One empty Kleenex box This activity is to help students experience the difficulties that Civil War surgeons faced as they struggled to give aid to the wounded. PREPARATION: Through the slight opening in the top of the Kleenex box, gently insert the following supplies into the box:
2 small balloons filled with water Next, place one of the marbles inside the box, covering it with the assortment of food items. Then, using the masking tape, cover any area of the box that would allow students to view the contents, leaving open an area only adequate to insert the kitchen tongs. ACTIVITY: Place the box in an area around which students can gather. Darken the room as much as possible, i.e. turning off lights, closing curtains, etc. Pass out the candles and drip guards to 2-3 students. Light the candles and explain: In the book, it talks about the difficulties faced by surgeons during the Civil War. One difficulty was the lack of electricity. That is why we have turned off the lights—so we can better imagine what it was like for the surgeon working in the dark basement. That surgeon would have been trying to operate by candlelight. Another difficulty was that, back then, surgeons did not have x-rays, MRIs, or all the other technology we have today. When they tried to find the bullet in a wound, they just had to poke around inside the soldier until they located it. Of course, time was very important! There were so many wounded that a doctor could spend only a minute or two on each. (Show students the remaining marble) The musket ball, or bullet, in the Civil War was about this size. In this box is a marble just like this. This box is about the size of a man’s chest and stomach area. Also inside the box are things like water balloons. These would be like a person’s lungs. Spaghetti is like the winding intestines in our stomachs. What we are going to do is try to find the bullet-marble inside this body-box. Remember that you must be gentle. You do not want to damage the patient’s organs. That might kill him. You just need to locate the marble and lift it out, using these. (Show students the tongs.) In addition, you have hundreds of wounded waiting, so you have only one minute. (Show students the timer). Who wishes to go first? Set the timer for one minute per student effort. When all have tried, encourage students to share briefly their experiences. (Easy? Difficult? Wish they could have seen better?) Lastly, explain that, often, surgeons would simply stick their hands inside a man and search around until he located the bullet. Ask for 2-3 volunteers to stick their hands inside the box and feel around until they locate and retrieve the marble. As each removes their hand from the box, have them press the open palm of their hand down into a slice of bread. When completed, place the bread slices into plastic bags. Tell students these will be used in three days for another experiment. (Note: Bread should be stored in an area conducive to the growth of mold and bacteria but not in view to students.) Finally, have the last students who used their hands to retrieve the marbles briefly describe their experience. (Was it easier than using the tongs? Why or why not? Would it have been better for doctors to use this method rather than probing with tongs and knives? Why or why not?) SCIENCE CONNECTION This activity requires preparation execution 72 hours before demonstration. Supplies:
Approximately 4 oz slice of beef First, three days before doing this activity, place the slice of meat in the container. Set in an inconspicuous place in the room. Day of the activity, revisit the images of the Civil War hospital. Explain the basics about germs, bacteria, and disease. Remind students that Civil War surgeons never took time to wash their hands. That they did not wear gloves like today’s doctors do to prevent infections. As a matter of fact, they did not even understand the dangers of infection. Explain gangrene to students: what it is, how it grows in the body and its ultimate effects (loss of limb and/or life). To brush-up on the definition of gangrene, Encyclopedia.com says: Gangrene, local death of body tissue. Dry gangrene, the most common form, follows a disturbance of the blood supply to the tissues, e.g., in diabetes, arteriosclerosis, thrombosis, or destruction of tissue by injury. A second type, moist gangrene, results from an invasion of toxin-producing bacteria that destroy tissue... The following link defines gangrene in more complex terminology but has some images which may be of interest: http://brooks.pvt.k12.ma.us/~bheun/gg.html Recall for students the activity with the marble. Remind students how several students used their hands to search for the marble, then pressed their hands onto a slice of bread. Display for students the slices of bread. Discuss the bacteria growth. Explain that the students’ hands were not washed before they reached into the box. The germs on their hands plus the germs picked up inside the box were “transferred” onto the bread. Liken this to the spread and growth of bacteria and infection experienced by wounded soldiers. Explain: Like the bread, soldiers were bandaged, containing the bacteria and contamination in much the same way as the bread inside the bag. For three days, the bags have been “growing” an “infection” in much the same way infection grew in the wounds of soldiers. As we have learned about gangrene, this, literally, causes the flesh, or meat, of the body to rot. What do you think rotting flesh would smell like? At this time, prepare to open the container holding the slice of beef. Explain that the meat inside is very much like the “meat” on our body, our muscles. Open the container. To draw a parallel to The Ghost Hunter and the Ghost of Gettysburg, it would mean that in the field hospital in the basement, having only a single window to open, in the month of July, the air would be very hot and stagnant. The smell would fill the air and “hang there.” (NOTE: If you have a microscope or magnifying glass, students would probably be interested in examining both the bread and meat. Also, a unit on bacteria and germs might be well received after these activities.) LANGUAGE ARTS CONNECTION In this title’s LIBRARY MEDIA GUIDE, under the topic of Civil War Medicine, you will find resource links to facilitate this writing activity. Tell students that they will write a short essay from the point of view of a Civil War surgeon. Scenario: The war has recently ended. The government wants battlefield surgeons to come speak at a conference. The speakers are to discuss issues regarding the care of wounded soldiers during and after battles. Topics can include such issues as amputations, diseases (dysentery, diarrhea, typhoid, and malaria), infections, how to perform amputations, ongoing care of the wounded, etc. Direct students to review the links provided for research. (Note: These links contain actual essays written by surgeons following the war.) They should select a topic, read material, and write a 1- 1 ½ page essay summarizing the available information. The essay should include:
Complete the activity by hosting a conference, allowing students to read their essays to the class. Create a program for the conference, listing each student’s name, with the title “Dr.” before it. Note the topic on which the student will be speaking. Make copies of the program to give to attendees. Invite another class into to hear the Symposium on Civil War Medicine. MATH CONNECTION The following are links to written materials published during the Civil War in by the Sanitary Commission. Included are patterns and instructions for the creation of clothing to be worn by recuperating soldiers housed in government hospitals. Also mentioned are directions for the size and storage requirements of bandages. Suggestions for math connection include work in conversion of measurements, cost analysis (a yard of material cost approximately five cents during the Civil War) and percentages (production cost during Civil War compared to today’s cost and the percentage of the increase).
Bandages
A light wrap around cloak (most likely, the predecessor to today’s hospital gown)
Slippers
Hospital Cotton Shirt
Drawers (trousers) DISCLAIMER: This information is presented in good faith, and while every precaution has been taken in its preparation, Ghost Hunter Productions assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. All links are submitted for your review and discretion regarding their use and presentation to your students. The publisher disclaims any liability in connection with the use and execution of this information. |