Western front

• What did the Geneva protocol add in 1925

  Gas attacks in war
• Thomas splint reduced fatalities by leg fractures from

  80% to 20%
• 4 main gas weapons during the war

  lachrimatory

  mustard

  chlorine

  phosgene
• shell shock

  psychological illness caused by constant artillery bombardment
• Developments in surgery and medicine during the war

  Treat all wounds as infected

  Syringe cannula blood transfusions

  X-rays

  The Thomas splint
• by April 1917. the German imperial army on the western front retreated to

  the Hindenburg line
• radiotherapy was used to treat cancer from

  1901
• 1914 Albert Hustin

  Discovered how to store blood for long periods without clotting
• 1938

  British national blood transfusion service was opened
• 1895

  Wilhelm röntgen discovered X-rays
• 1917, battle of Cambrai

  Blood collected before battle to treat soldiers

  Worlds first blood bank
• First blood bank

  1917 Cambrai
• What does RAMC

  Royal army medical corps
• Western front was where

  Are in Belgium and France where the allies fought the German imperial army from 1914 to 1918
• Archibald mclndoe

  by ww2 he was using drugs such as penicillin to treat soldiers with facial wounds
• 1917 queens hospital in Kent established

  to treat soldiers with facial wounds
• Harold gillies

  set up a unit to transplant skin for soldiers with facial wounds
• Advances in ww1

  Plastic surgery

  Blood transfusions

  X-rays
• Ideal trench depth

  6 foot
• July 1916 many british lives lost when

  Tried to penetrate the german line at the Somme
• Between 1900 and 1901 Karl Landsteiner

  Discovered different blood types. Type A B AB and O.
• Trench foot

  Caused by standing in flooded trenches for so long
• X-rays first used in

  Ww1
• curie developed

  mobile X-ray machines
• xrays discovered by

  röntgen
• 3 parallel lines of trenches

  Frontline

  Support

  reserve
• primary role of the FANY

  Field ambulance
• FANY

  first aid nursing yeomanry corps
• 4 main relay posts in the RAMCs chain of evacuation

  Regimental aid post (RAPs)

  Dressing stations

  Casualty clearing station

  Base hospitals
• What were X-ray machines used for

  Locate broken bones, bullets, metal shards and shrapnel in bodies and wounds
• Chain of evacuation systems aimed to

  Move casualties with the highest chance of surviving to medical areas as quickly as possible
• Aseptic surgery

  Joseph lister used first antiseptic in 1865 and it led to the development of aseptic surgery
• aseptic surgery means

  removing all the germs before surgery
• because of listers work by late 1800s most operations used aseptic methods

  surgeons washed their hands, face and arms

  rubber gloves and gowns worn

  surgical instruments were steam sterilised

  air sterilised by being pumped through a heating system
• x-rays discovered

  Accidentally by German physicist Wilhelm roentgen in 1895
• Because of X-rays

  Radiology departments opened in some British hospitals as early as 1896.

  This meant that doctors were now able to look inside the body without cutting them open
• issues with early x-rays

  people didn’t understand the risks of radiation

  patients could suffer burns or hair loss because of the radiation

  Roentgen developed a table-top machine, but the glass tube used was fragile and easily broken

  X-ray took about 90 minutes

  Larger x-ray machines hard to move around
• blood transfusions and banks

  blood loss was still a major problem during surgery in the late 1800s now doctors had anaesthetics and antiseptics, they often attempted more complex operations
• James blundell

  carried out the first human blood transfusion in 1818, because blood could not be stored for later use,

  earlier transfusions involved the donor being directly connected to the recipient by a tube.
• how many transfusions did blundell perform

  10 but only 5 were successful