impact of ww1 on medicine

• Some shell shocked soldiers had panic attacks;others shook all the time or were unable to speak or move.
• at first british army refused to believe that shell shock existed and many men were treated as cowards, however by the end of the war it was recognised and is now know as PTSD
• X-rays were discovered in 1895,and were used in hospitals to find broken bones
• Mobile x-ray machines were used near battlefields to find out exactly wherein the wounded soldier’s body the bullets or pieces of shrapnel had lodged – without having to cut him wide open.
• Harold Gillies developed plastic surgery.He set up a special unit to graft (transplant) skin and treat men suffering from severe facial wounds.
• He is commonly recognised as one of the first surgeons to consider a patient’s appearance when treating wounds
• Queen’s Hospital in Kent opened in 1917 and by 1921 provided over 1000 beds for soldiers with severe facial wounds. Gillies and his colleagues treated over 5000 servicemen by 1921.
• Battlefields were very dirty places and lethal wound infections such as gangrene were common. 
• the best way to prevent wound infections was to cut away any infected flesh and soak the wound in salty (saline) solution
• Karl Landsteiner discovered blood groups, which helped doctors to work out that a transfusion only worked if the donor’s blood type matched the receiver’s.
• it wasn’t possible to store blood for long because it clotted so quickly. As a result, many people still died from loss of blood, so a solution to the problem of storing blood was needed.
• In 1914, Albert Hustin discovered that glucose and sodium citrate stopped blood from clotting on contact with air. Other advances meant that blood could be bottled, packed in ice, and taken to where it was needed by surgeons operating on soldiers.
• New techniques were developed during the First World War to repair broken bones. For example, the Army Leg Splint (or Keller-Blake Splint) was developed which elevated and extended the broken leg ‘in traction’. This helped the bones to knit together more securely. This splint is still in use today.
• it could be argued that the First World War actually hindered the development of medicine because thousands of doctors were taken away from their normal work to treat casualties.
• lots of medical research was stoppedduring wartime so countries could concentrate everything on the war effort. Also, throughout history, warfare has disrupted towns and cities, sometimes destroying libraries and places of learning. Medical advancements may have been delayed because these places were destroyed and manuscripts lost.