How hemorrhage control became common sense.

Background: Just over 200 years ago, surgeons were puzzled that the use of the tourniquet to control hemorrhage as common sense during surgery was a relatively recent development. Within the last 20 years, much progress has been made to controlling hemorrhage in the prehospital context. Then, as now, it was surprising that progress on something that appeared obvious had occurred only recently, begging the question how controlling blood loss was common sense in a surgical context, but not for emergency treatment.