Medical Treatment during World War 1

Volunteers in WWI

• Volunteers originally wanted to be part of war but weren't physically fit.

• An ambulance driver was the next thing closest to war.

• Some woman also became ambulance drivers.

• The ambulance vehicles and speed were more appealing to young people of a better educated class.

• There were 3 predominant volunteer services: American Field Service, Norton-Harjes, American Red Cross in Italy.

Altering the Ambulance

Relation to Farewell To Arms

• The first volunteer service was created, called the Anglo-American Ambulance.

Fredric Henry was an ambulance driver and volunteered to drive for Italy. He would have been part of the war as a soldier but, had defective vision in his left eye.

• In 1899, the first automobile ambulance was made.

Ambulance drivers and a line of ambulances.

Surgeons' issues

• Soon, speeding was part of the picture.

Bibliography

Citations

• Young surgeons were required to train before being sent out to war. However, while the training was done in more sanitary conditions in operating room, the actual treatment during war was done in difficult conditions, treating many grossly contaminated wounds in improvised operation theaters.
• Young surgeons were often sent out to the front while older, more experienced soldiers worked in base hospitals
• Surgeons rediscovered debridement, which is the excision of dead and dying tissue and the removal of foreign matter to combat with the issues faced

Woman ambulance drivers.

Miller, Geoffrey. "The Medical History of WWI." WWI The Medical Front. Virtual

Libraries, n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. <http://www.vlib.us/medical/

medindex.html>.

1918 Flu Epidemic. Lifeboat Foundation BioShield. Lifeboat Foundation, n.d. Web.

11 Nov. 2012. <http://lifeboat.com/ex/bio.shield>.

Tompkins, Joan Laxson. "Medicine And Health." American Decades. By Vincent

Tompkins. 1910-1919 ed. N.p.: Gale Research, 1996. 379-430. Print.

Trench Foot. HubPages. Service Mark of HubPages, 16 Mar. 2011. Web. 10 Nov.

2012. <http://smnmcshannon.hubpages.com/hub/

World-One-War-Infamous-Trench-Foot>.

Typhoid Vaccine. University of Houston. The University of Houston, n.d. Web. 9

Nov. 2012. <http://www.history.uh.edu/cph/tobearfruit/

story_1900-1926_section05.html>.

"Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)." GlobalSecurity.org. GlobalSecurity.org,

n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. <http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/

bio_cholera.htm>.

Transportation During WWI

Ambulance drivers in front of ambulances. Great War Primary Document Archive:

Photos of the Great War. Ray Mentzer, 1997. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.

<http://www.gwpda.org/photos/greatwar.htm>.

British Ambulance drivers near the front. Great War Primary Document Archive:

Photos of the Great War. Ray Mentzer, 27 Feb. 2009. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.

<http://www.gwpda.org/photos/coppermine/

displayimage.php?album=search&cat=0&pos=7>.

"Female Ambulance Drivers." Great War Primary Document Archive: Photos of the

Great War. Ray Mentzer, 10 Apr. 2009. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.

<http://www.gwpda.org/photos/coppermine/

displayimage.php?album=search&cat=0&pos=3>.

First World War. Michael Duffy, 22 Aug. 2009. Web. 7 Nov. 2012.

<http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/ambulance.htm>.

Janman, Barbara. "The RAMC Chain of Evacuation." RAMC: Royal Army Medical Corps.

Paramount Digital marketing, 20 Dec. 2007. Web. 7 Nov. 2012.

<http://www.ramc-ww1.com/chain_of_evacuation.php>.

Wright, A. J. "The 1900s: Medicine and Health." American Decades. Ed. Judith S.

Baughman, et al. Vol. 1: 1900-1909. Detroit: Gale, 2001. Gale Virtual

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i.do?id=GALE%7CCX3468300222&v=2.1&u=rock34534&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=

w>

• The main transportation was the ambulance, which was created by Queen Isabella's forces in the 1480's.

Breakthrough

• In 1792, Dominique-Jean Larry, a chief surgeon, created an ambulance specifically to transport the wounded in war.

• Antiseptics were widely used to fight infections but seemed to be no match for putrefaction and gangrene. A new method of antiseptic irrigation, created by Alexis Carrel and Henry Dakin, called the Carrel-Dakins solution, which contained sodium hypochlorite.
• It provided a remarkably effective way to limit wound infections, but only after the would sufficiently debrided.
• This method of antiseptic irrigation led to larger survival rates

Alexis Carrel

• These weren't the best and were thought of as "more pathetic than glamorous" because,
• They were driven by drunkards and thieves.
• They were pulled by animals so they were slow and many died during the trip.
• They weren't sanitary

Henry Dakin

Treatment

Typhoid Fever

Edward Wright developed a vaccine for typhoid fever in 1889 so this vaccine was used in the war. It was efficient. The British were the only ones vaccinated.

Typhoid was spread due to the consuming of faecally contaminated food or water.

Medical Treatment in WWI

Rehabilitation

Symptoms were sore throat, fever, headache, nausea, and loss of appetite.

• Significant advance in rehabilitation.
• Casualty clearing stations (CCS) were created.
• Initiating treatment at CCSs made it possible to treat wounds within minutes to hours rather than the one to two days that had been the norm early in the war.
• Early treatment decreased blood loss and the risk of infection, which led to the survival of many more soldiers.

By: Lillian Andemicael, Karthika Krishnan, Avanti Kolluri, Katherine Martin & Sam Chisolm

In A Farewell to Arms, the scene where Henry and his peers are at a dugout and shelling begins, he is transported to wound dressing station or CCS, to be treated.

Trench Fever

• Sudden fever
• Loss of energy
• Intense headache
• Skin rash
• Pain in the eyeballs
• Dizziness
• Muscle aches

An Overview

Shock in the war

Trench Fever is caused from the bites of body lice.

• Trench Foot
• Cholera
• Influenza "Spanish Flu"
• Typhoid Fever
• Trench Fever

Treatment

• Medical officers tried to cure trench fever by using different drugs, which included quinine. They were all unsuccessful.

• Electrotherapeutics caused pain relief.

• Shock, which is the failure of the body to sufficiently supply blood was a prominent issue faced.
• Surgical methods improved which led to higher survival rates but shock was still claiming the lives of soldiers.
• Blood transfusions were given, but by syringes in insufficient quantities. When a patient died, irreversible shock was diagnosed rather than inadequacies in transfusions techniques.
• The donors blood would often clot in the syringe which led to the addition of citrate solution to the blood.
• To supply sufficient quantities, the continuous drip method, where blood flows from was a flask rather than transfused with a syringe, was invented by Hugh Marriott and Alan Kekwick.

Most diseases came due to rat infestation and lice.

• The symptoms include bronchial pneumonia, heliotrope cyanosis and septicemic blood poisoning.

The Influenza Pandemic of 1918

• This virus caused an haemorrhaging that filled the lungs, and patients would drown in their own body fluids.

Trench Foot

• In months, it claimed 50 million lives worldwide.

• Trench Foot is a fungal infection due to soldiers constantly marching in wet, cold, muddy climate

• Caused fevers that ranged from 100 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

• It may result in severe fever, headaches, pain in legs and back.

Cholera

Bibliography

• They had therapy for it but of course it was less scientific.

• Cholera is a liquid form of diarrhea or vomit.

• cinnamon in powder or oil form with milk to reduce temperature

• At first the skin would turn red or blue, then the smell of decay starts to kick in. If the foot is not treated, can lead to gangrene. Gangrene was treated by amputation.

• Cholera is caused by the bacteria Vibrio cholera

• For cyanosis, oxygen was given.

• 20,000 casualties resulted from Trench Foot in the British Army.

A connection to A Farewell to Arms

"History of Medicine." Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2012.

<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/372460/history-of-medicine/35697/World-War-I?anchor=ref412974>.

McCallum, Jack. "'Military Medicine: WorlPhotograph of Henry Dakin. N.d. Journal of Biological Chemistry. Web. 11 Nov. 2012. <http://www.jbc.org/content/277/23/20113/F4.medium.gif>.

McCallum, Jack. "Military Medicine: World War I." World at War: Understanding Conflict and Society. ABC-CLIO, 2012. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.

<http://worldatwar.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/758089?terms=military+medicine>

American Base Hospital in France, Ca. 1918. N.d. ABC- CLIO. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.

<http://worldatwar.abc-clio.com/assets/mediaserver/USatWar/7986/

798697w.jpg>.

Photograph of Alexis Carrel. N.d. Nobel Prize. Web. 11 Nov. 2012. <http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1912/

index.html>.

Photograph of Henry Dakin. N.d. Journal of Biological Chemistry. Web. 11 Nov.

2012. <http://www.jbc.org/content/277/23/20113/F4.medium.gif>.

Wright, A.J. Medicine and Health. 1900-1909. By Vincent Tompkins. Detriot: n.p.,

n.d. 379-427. Print. Vol. 1 of American Decades.

"At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army."

• In 1910, gypsies brought the disease from Russia to Italy.