Medicine on the Western Front 1914-1918 Medicine through time Medicine on the Western Front 1914-1918

Key Content Aseptic Surgery (Lister) X Rays and mobile X Rays (Roentgen) Blood Groups and Transfusions (Landsteiner – discovery of blood groups makes it much easier to do transfusions, however as we cant store blood – it coagulates quickly, the transfusions need to take place next to the recipient, and it can be infected quickly.)

The Trench System Communications Trench – Runs between other trenches, men don’t stay here Reserve Trench – at least 100 m behind the support trench and was where troops could be kept in reserve for a counter attack if the front line trench was captured. Support Trench – About 80 metres behind the front line trench. You would retreat here if the frontline trench was under attack. Frontline Trench – Attacks were made from here, surrounded by barbed wire. You only stayed here for hours and they were dug in a zig zag pattern.

Ypres 1914 First Ypres and Hill 60 – key here is the use of mines. 50,000 British troops were casualties. Ypres is a salient Men were also beginning to dig tunnels here 1915 2nd Ypres – This was the first use of Chlorine Gas and losses were in the region of 59,000 men

The Somme 1916 Massive loss on British side 60,000 on day 1, 20,000 in first hour, Also sees the creeping barrage and use of tanks Battle from July 1 to November 1916 and sees over 1 million men from both sides killed or wounded.

1917 Arras, Passchendaele (3rd Ypres) and Cambrai Tunnels and caves were dug out 160,000 casualties 3rd Ypres was famous for mud and over 250,000 casualties Cambrai is the first use of large scale tanks

Problems Land was farmland and therefore had lots of fertiliser in the soil, this meant many more infections were seen. Injured men needed to be moved quickly – stretcher bearers; horse drawn ambulances etc. couldn’t cope with the massive number of wounded and the severity of the injuries

Types of wounds Trench foot Trench Fever Shellshock Explosives and rifle wounds Shrapnel Gas

Gas Chlorine – death by suffocation – first attacks were made and doctors had no experience do were making it up on the job. It was green and could be seen. Men could be given warnings Phosgene – faster than Chlorine Gas masks given out in 1915 before this men urinated on cotton pads Mustard – could penetrate clothing and burn the skin and you couldn’t see it so no warnings

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4)  Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind. Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . . Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12)  Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)  To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.(15

Work of RAMC and FANY Regimental Aid Posts First Aid Nursing Yeomanry Dressing Stations (Advanced DS and Main DS) Casualty Clearing Stations (CCS) Base Hospitals

New ideas Amputations Thomas Splint Mobile X rays Blood Transfusions Brain Surgery Plastic Surgery

Question 1 Describe two features of… 4 marks 5 minutes Keep the answer brief You need to give a feature and support it with a brief explanation

Describe two features of CCS CCS were as close as possible to the front line. The wounded were divided into three groups in the CCS. This would get 2/4 because it has two features but no support CCS needed to be close to the frontline because they needed to be able to deal with the wounded as quickly as they could, but far enough away to be protected from shelling. A triage system was used to divide the wounded in the CCS. The badly injured would be made comfortable and not treated. This gets 4/4 as it has two features and 2 explanations.

How useful are A and B for … 8 marks 12 minutes max Here you need to use NOPCA Think about what you know and what the source tells you – can you trust it? Is it written with something in mind? Who might the audience be? So how may this change the perception of the source? You need to talk about both sources You need to consider their use in relation to the question What can you infer? How useful is it? Source A is more useful to a historian as it is written by a doctor who was in a CCS during the first battle of the Somme and he had seen the attempts by the Germans to use Gas first hand. We may need to see a source from a different part of the 20 mile battlefield to see if this happened all along the front… Don’t say it’s a photograph and they capture a moment in time, or they can be staged more likely for this bit WHY they may have been staged and how that affects the usefulness to a historian.

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How can you follow up? 4 marks 5 minutes Detail in Source A that I would follow up ? It needs to be a quote from the source – after three days doing well infection set in Question I would ask – How effective were the treatments for infections such as gangrene? Source would I use Army medical records with statistics that tell us about the survival rates of men who had infections How might this help answer my question? It would help me to see if treatments that were used on the Western Front were more effective than the other.