medicine on the western front key dates

• 1917 - battle of the somme

  In total, 400,000 Allied casualties and this put pressure on medical services on the Western Front.
• First Battle of Ypres - 1914.

  Second Battle of Ypres - 1915.

  Third Battle of Ypres - 1917.
• 1917 - Battle of arras. Before the battle, Allied soldiers dug tunnels below Arras. Tunnels led to rooms and included an underground hospital.

  The underground hospital had

  • waiting rooms
  • operating theatres
  • room for 700 stretchers
  • mortuary
  • electricity and running water
• 1917- Battle of cambrai. This is where blood banks were used as it wwas discovered that sodium citrate clots blood and people have different blood groups
• The Thomas Splint - Stopped joints moving and increased survival rates from 20% to 82%.
• Evacuation route:

  Stretcher bearers - carried wounded soldiers

  Regimental Aid Post - Always close to the front line

  Dressing Station - Emergency treatment for wounded.

  Casualty Clearing Station - Large, well equipped station, 10 miles from trenches.

  Base Hospitals: X-ray, operating theatre and areas to deal with gas poisoning.
• RAMC


  Royal Army Medical Corps. This organisation organised and provided medical care. It consisted of all ranks from doctors to ambulance drivers and stretcher bearers.
• FANY


  First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. Founded in 1907 by a soldier who hoped they would be a nursing cavalry to help the wounded in battle.
• Plastic surgery


  Discovered in ww1 as many soldiers had facial deformities from bombs
• types of gas

  • mustard gas - blindness and lung infections
  • tear gas - inflammation and blindness
  • chlorine gas - slowly suffocates victims
  • phosgene - suffocation - hard to detect as clear
• illnesses of war

  • Shell-shock: caused by stressful conditions of war and symptoms included tiredness, nightmares, headaches
  • trench foot: caused by soldiers standing in mud/waterlogged trenches
  • trench fever: caused by body lice and included flu-like symptoms
• Gangrene


  When a body decomposes due to a loss of blood supply.
• Shrapnel

  A hollow shell filled with steel balls or lead, with gunpowder from bombs. Caused major injuries