Illnesses and Wounds

• When did stretcher parties search no man's land?

  At night
• How were stretcher parties protected while searching during the day?

  Their side would provide a covering fire.
• At first aid posts, men were sorted into people who needed a dressing and could go back to the frontline, and men who needed further treatment.
• Where were men who needed further treatment sent?

  Casualty Clearing Stations
• What were Casualty Clearing Stations?

  Mobile hospitals a few kms from the front line
• Where were soldiers well enough to move sent to?

  Base hospitals
• What happened to soldiers with severe injuries?

  They could be sent home to be cared for in British hospitals and nursing homes
• Why were high speed bullets and shrapnel so dangerous?

  They created severe wounds by tearing into flesh and shattering bone
• How did British soldiers protect themselves from bullets?

  They wore steel helmets that became standard issue in 1916
• What did surgeons develop expertise operating on?

  Eyes, ears, nose, throats and brains
• How did lying injured in the battlefield cause issues for surgeons?

  Wounds got infected which caused issues because they needed to be cleaned before surgery
• Why did nurses work increase once poison gas was introduced?

  There were more casualties - mustard gas had many side effects such as blindness, deafness, loss of voice, difficulty swallowing and breathing, burns, and high fever
• Men at the front line suffered from extreme stress and exhaustion
• Many developed shell shock (PTSD)
• On the Western Front men on the front line drank infected water that could give them _?

  typhoid and dysentery
• Body lice carried typhus fever and helped spread _?

  trench fever
• What caused trench foot?

  Standing in wet unsanitary conditions for long periods of time
• What were the symptoms of trench foot?

  Feet would swell to twice the normal size and go numb. When the swelling went down soldiers would be in unbearable pain.