WWI New Medical Techniques

• Thomas splint


  Developed to deal with broken bones, pulled the break apart stopping it rubbing and stopping the internal bleeding
• 80% of soldiers with broken legs, especially those with compound fractures, died from bleeding and infection when being evacuated from the trenches in World War 1
• The Thomas splint cut the death rate down from 80% to 20% for these wounds
• Versions of the Thomas splint have been used right up to the present day
• Problems faced by the Royal Army Medical Corps at the start of World War 1


  • Dealing with infections caused by gas gangrene
  • Not possible to perform aseptic surgery in dressing stations and Casualty clearing stations due to contaminated conditions and large numbers of wounded men
• Wound excision or debridement


  1. Cutting away the dead, damaged and infected tissue from around the wound to reduce infection

  2. Needed to be done quickly to prevent the infection spreading
• Carol Dakin method


  1. Putting sterilized salt solution or saline solution in a wound through a tube

  2. Solution only lasted for 6 hours and had to be made as soon as needed
• If wound excision and use of antiseptics failed, amputation was the only way to deal with the spread of infection
• By 1918, 240,000 British soldiers had lost limbs, many due to amputation being the only way to prevent the spread of infection and death
• The medical techniques developed in World War 1, despite the lack of antibiotic medicines, later proved their value in peacetime as well as war