This is thesurgical unit of the Red Cross - Note how young some of the surgeons are, and the lack of 18-40 year olds - This is because lots of them were fighting at the time - Also see how there are hardly any women surgeons.

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History project; Medicine in WORLD WAR ONE.

This is the surgical unit of the Red Cross. Note how young some of the surgeons are, and the lack of 18-40 year olds. This is because lots of them were fighting at the time. Also see how there are hardly any women surgeons. If this photo had been taken at the end of the war then there would be more women surgeons. This is because the number of men began to dwindle away toward the end of the war. Women had also begun to prove themselves more worthy of a higher up job than in previous years. They had had to show how well they could cope whilst the men were away fighting and had managed very well, and many were reluctant to give up the jobs thing that triggered the suffragette movement later on in when the men returned from the war. This was the sort of time.

Introduction.

Although war is a terrible thing, it can sometimes be helpful, for instance, in the medical profession. Surgical and psychological advances are needed, fast, and this makes medical knowledge speed up dramatically. World War One is a very good example of this. A lot of the things about medicine that we know today were not known 100 years ago, and it was the war that brought them out. There are 4 main areas that I want to look at. These are:

  1. Psychiatry
  2. Surgery
  3. Pharmacological
  4. Gas Warfare

There are many other areas, but these are the main ones. Although Gas Warfare is not a big issue today, in World War One it was a very big thing. The question asked is did World War One lead to medical advance, and we will find out this answer.

Psychiatry

Psychological disorders have only become properly diagnosed as a condition in the last century. Before that, people were not taken seriously. If the disorder was serious, such as insanity, were thrown away forever into mental asylums. It was considered a big shame to have a mentally ill person in the family, and those of high society often paid extortionate amounts of money to have their own flesh and blood locked away in these ‘asylums’, where patients often didn’t last out the end of the year. Other less serious disorders, like depression or anxiety, were shammed. Sufferers were told to ‘pull themselves together’ or worse still ignored, or laughed at. This all changed during the war, particularly toward the end of it. Shell shock was the most common psychological disorder during the war. The phrase ‘shell shock’ is a collective noun for a whole number of disorders, all caused by the same thing. This thing was the horror of war. Some soldiers could not cope with the daily horrors that were bestowed upon them. From most trenches, the sound of dying men, crying out could be heard. The soldiers had to pass the rotting corpses of their friends every time they visited no mans land. There was also the fear of being killed themselves. That, with the combined forces of homesickness and the continual explosions, could seriously mess with the mind. At the start of the war, lots of the sufferers were shot, for cowardice. Some officers thought that the people complaining of shell shock were just trying to get time off to go home. They just wouldn’t accept that there could be diseases of the mind aswell as those of the body. The effects of shell shock were dire. Horrendous events were replayed over and over again in the mind of the sufferer. This could cause muttering, severe anxiety and depression, and often amnesia. This is an interesting point. The amnesia comes from the sufferer being so totally appalled by the events that he has seen, that he just subconsciously blanks them from his mind. This also causes him to forget other things, as his mind is so used to blanking everyday events. Eventually, in extreme cases, the sufferer can lose his mind completely, and not remember anything. Toward the end of the war, shell shock was starting to get recognised as a disorder. Psychological research on the home front was the sort of thing that raised awareness of the horror of shell shock. Generals were ordered to send all shell shock sufferers to the doctor, for treatment. This movement led to the belief that psychological illnesses were just as important as physical illnesses and since then, things have lifted off. Psychiatry has become very well established in the medical profession and lots of people’s problems have been resolved.

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Surgery

The hygiene levels alone of the surgical aspect of medicine rocketed during World War One. Surgery improved dramatically. Amputations were not fatal and neither was removing bullet, both of which had been in the past. Infection was less due to the invention of antibiotics. Amputation was usually performed where a patient had gotten a bad injury to a limb. If the injury could be repaired without amputation, it was. But more often than not, with the trenches being full of infection, the injuries often turned gangrene before they could be operated upon. If a wound turned ...

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