Western Front

• Machine guns

  Could fire 450 times a minute, would fracture bones or pierce organs
• Bullet and shrapnel wounds

  When open, would be contaminated with soil containing bacteria for tetanus and gas gangrene
• Chlorine gas

  Suffocated soldiers, 6000 British men died
• Phosgene gas

  Killed a person in two days
• Mustard gas

  Killed within 12 hours, caused both internal and external blisters, could pass through clothes
• Types of wounds

  • 58% shrapnel and shells
  • 39% bullets
  • 60% to arms and legs
• Shrapnel bullet wounds

  Consisted of metal with fabric of the uniform
• Rifles

  Could fire up to 500m but lacked the speed of machine guns
• Shell explosion

  Scattered shrapnel at fast speeds, likely to injure a number of men within seconds
• Gas gangrene

  An infection that produces gas in gangrenous wounds, no cure and killed within a day
• Gas masks were given to soldiers in 1915 (July)
• Anti-Tetanus injections introduced at the end of 1914
• Brodie helmets

  Introduced to protect men's heads, reduced head injuries by 80%
• Thomas Splint

  1. Developed by Robert Jones and Hugh Thomas

  2. Used to stop joints from moving

  3. Sent to Boulogne in December 1915 to instruct medical practitioners

  4. Survival rate increased to 82%
• Amputation

  The only option if wound excision and antiseptics didn't work, 24,000 men had limbs amputated by 1918
• Blood transfusions

  1. Robertson used indirect methods which were effective and set up the blood bank at cambrai in 1917

  2. Keynes designed a portable blood transfusion kit with technology to prevent clotting
• Mobile X-rays

  1. Marie Curie equipped 20 mobile X-ray units to work in the French sector

  2. Used to identify shell fragments and bullets in wounds
• Excision or debridement

  1. Cutting away of dead, damaged and infected tissue from the wound

  2. Needed to be done quickly as infection spread fast

  3. Wound then stitched up
• Carrel-Dakin method

  1. Sterilised salt solution put into wound using a tube

  2. Solution only lasted 6 hours, so had to be made as needed
• Stretcher bearers

  Carried injured soldiers from the front line, exposed to shelling and gunfire, performed medical procedures
• RAMC

  Royal Army Medical Corps, responsible for medical care on the Western Front, used French goods trains to transport injured men
• Base hospitals

  Located near the coast, gave more complex care to wounded men
• FANY

  First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, responsible for frontline support, drove ambulances and engaged in emergency first aid
• Chain of evacuation: RAP -> ADS -> MDS -> CCS -> BH
• The First Battle of Ypres

  • GEF moved to Ypres to prevent German advance, Allies lost 50,000 but held Ypres
• The Battle for Hill 60

  • Hill 60 was strategically important, British used offensive mining to retake it, very high death rate for medics
• The Second Battle of Ypres

  • First time Germans used chlorine gas, new injuries medics didn't know how to treat
• The Battle of Cambrai

  • Artillery barrage changed, tanks accompanied the attack, injuries from artillery and bombing
• The Third Battle of Ypres

  • British army wanted to break out of Ypres Salient, rainy weather led to many deaths in the mud
• The Battle of the Somme

  • Enormous casualties, new strategies of creeping barrage and short-range ranks used
• The Battle of Arras

  • 24,000 men attacked from tunnels, enormous amount of injuries, 160,000 casualties
• Shell shock

  Symptoms included tiredness, headaches, nightmares, loss of speech, uncontrollable shaking and mental breakdown
• Trench fever

  Symptoms included high fever, 600,000 recorded cases, cause identified as lice in 1918
• Trench foot

  Swelling of feet, caused by standing in mud and water, could develop into gangrene
• Shrapnel infection and head injury

  Metal penetrating the body took uniform with it, leading to infection, Brodie helmets reduced head injuries
• Mustard gas

  Odourless gas that worked within 12 hours, causing internal and external blisters that could pass through clothes
• Phosgene gas

  Similar to chlorine but faster, killing an exposed person in two days
• Chlorine gas

  Led to death by suffocation
• In November and December 1914, there were over 6000 cases of frostbite
• Statistics

  • 58% shrapnel and shell wounds
  • 39% bullet wounds
  • 60% to arms and legs
  • Less than 12% to chest, stomach or back