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[dirkzen]

When the siege finally came, I was ready this time.
I readied my archers and axedwarves, and sent them in to attack.  The battle was glorious.  Out of 20 dwarves, there were only 2 casualties.
I felt triumphant.  ...until I read the battle reports.  Broken bones, severed limbs, gushing arteries and contusions everywhere. 
I watched them limp/hobble/crawl to the hospital, where my medical dwarf seemed to be a bit too busy eating his dinner to deal with the sudden appearance of arterial blood squirting all over his walls and floors.
Eventually, slowly, he treated them as they fell asleep/unconscious.
One by one, I watched them die slowly of thirst and starvation.
I'd only lost 2 on the battlefield, but 8 more died in bed, noone willing to bring them food or water.
It was a little depressing.
Everyone in the fortress seemed to be too busy hauling in the spoils of war as they stripped the goblins and took everything they found on the ground to bother with the dying soldiers that had just saved them all from a gruesome fate.

Has anyone else ran into this problem?

[AaronLS]

Thirst and starvation can be a leading cause of hospital fatalities. I always take at least two or three of my hauler dwarves and turn off all hauling labors except to feed patients.  2-3 at least is required since odds are some will be eating/sleeping themselves and neglect the hospitalized patients.

For the same reason you need multiple doctors, and need to disable all of their labors except treatment during medical emergencies.  I even disable feeding patients for Dr. dwarves.  Let the dedicated haulers do that, so that the Dr.'s can focus on doctoring.  That's how it is in real life right?  You have some poor over worked intern doing all the mopping and feeding of patients so the Dr.'s valuable time is focused on treating the patient.

[AaronLS]

As for why gathering spoils of war is higher priority than feeding the sick... the dwarven religion is centered on the silk sock.  Everything is for the silk sock.  They honor fallen comrades by ensuring they recover the silk socks so that their warriors fought so hard and died for.  Hence again Dwarf Fortress is much like real life, in that both share in war and suffering being driven by complete nonsense

[MonkeyHead]

I find stopping the accumilation of crap until medical work is done is a good idea. Will make for fun necromancer encounters in the future no doubt.

[MonsteR]

You can always change the settings so that items dropped by enemies are forbidden off the bat. This is the default (at least in my experience) so you may have changed it. While it may be a pain to go and un-forbid everything, it's worse to lose wounded dwarves or have idiots run out to loot bodies while there is still a siege. Let it be unforbidden if you have a very powerful army, or if it's just a few enemies. Otherwise, it can be better to just manually choose when to loot, or to remove the hauling labors of a few dwarves (I usually remove it from my miners/engravers).

[plynxis]

you're lucky it wasnt fb blood that caused all that.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=52208.msg2602376#msg2602376

[Girlinhat]

Medical care sucks.  This is historically accurate.  At least they're not performing medicine with leeches - in fact it's probably very good that a doctor is using no tools.  I could only imagine the horror of a ☼Adamantine Scalpel☼ menacing with spikes of elf bone.  Which because of adamantine's weight and sharpness, if you dropped it it would cut through a person and stick halfway into the stone floor.

Picking a doctor is the hardest part of labor management.  You want an altruistic dwarf with "enjoys helping others" in their personal thoughts and preferences.  Bonus points if they are spontaneous as well.  Altruistic dwarves are MUCH more likely to provide medical care, and spontaneous dwarves don't wait very long before taking a new job.  I always assign doctor labor according to altruism, not skill.  Legendary wound dresser migrant and a peasant who likes helping others?  That legendary doctor won't do any good if he's never going to actually do his job.

[plynxis]

leeches are a valid medical practice and so are fly maggots. its using different tools, thats all.

[Girlinhat]

Yes, but how often were they actually used validly in history?

"I've been stung by a scorpion!"
"Leeches!"

"I broke my leg farming!"
"Leeches!"

"I've got a sore throat."
"Leeches!"

"I'm sad because my husband died during the war."
"LEECHES!

[plynxis]

yeah they were - they're used today as well in certain cases. maggots are commonly used by medical professionals trained for their use. in fact, when it comes to rotting flesh, like gangrene or infections that cause it, maggots are a very safe and effective way to clear the rotting flesh and save a limb. a doctor during ww2 i think discovered the use of maggots and saved a ton of soldiers from amputation.

leeches i think are used to drain blood from poisonous bites and other cases where blood has to be removed from a certain area cleanly.

ofcourse, the actual leeches and maggots used arent the pavement or swamp type - they're bred for this job and kept under conditions appropriate for medical hygiene.

edit - if you want a really bad archaic medical practice, try blood removal, where they pump all your blood out with a tube and replace it with someone elses. unsurprisingly, most patients died, most likely from extreme blood loss and/or rejection syndrome.

[Boost One]

...in fact it's probably very good that a doctor is using no tools.

Real dwarf uses his teeth.

[C0NNULL]

...in fact it's probably very good that a doctor is using no tools.

Real dwarf uses his teethbeard.

Fixed that for ya.

[AWdeV]

Well, it does sound realistic. Although people would be more likely to die of infection and disease than of starvation... You need a legion of idlers to keep unconcious dwarfs properly fed and watered.

[geail]

"I broke my leg farming!"
"Leeches!"

That can actually be a valid use for leeches.  One of the primary uses for leeches is to draw blood into an area where it otherwise is unwilling to go.  If you broke your femur and part of it was unable to get enough oxygen, using leeches to bring essential nutrients closer would be quite useful.

[ulan]

Was about to post something akin to this
after several rounds of live training, a very nice wrestler of mine ended up dying in the hospital even though he came in there with a /broken arm/
but its wintertime so they cant get water, so all I can do is watch them die of minor injuries atm
:|