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Medicine in the Trenches
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Medicine Through Time – The British Sector of the Western Front, 1914-18
In this course, Dr Jessica Meyer (University of Leeds) takes us on a journey through the chain of medical evacuation during World War I. We start by looking at how soldiers were cared for day-to-day in the trenches. We then look at first response and first aid in ‘no man’s land’ and the trenches. After this, we’ll examine the field ambulance in closer detail. We’ll then see how overseas medical care worked during the First World War, taking a closer look at medical transport from the stretcher-bearers to the hospital train. In the final module, we look at military and convalescent hospitals back in Britain.
Medicine in the Trenches
In this module, we look at how soldiers were cared for day-to-day in the trenches. We have a look at who was responsible for medical care, what sorts of medical problems men faced, and what measures were instituted to prevent these. Crucial to all this was hygiene - the task of keeping men and their quarters as clean as possible.
Hello. I'm Dr Jessica Meier.
00:00:05I'm associate professor of modern British history at the University of Leeds.
00:00:08And in this course,
00:00:12I'm going to be discussing medical caregiving in the
00:00:14British armed forces during the First World War.
00:00:16To do this,
00:00:19I'll be taking you on a journey along the chain of
00:00:20medical evacuation from the front line to Convalescent Hospital in Britain.
00:00:23We'll be focusing on the experiences of those serving on the Western front,
00:00:28although there will be some references to specific experiences of those, uh,
00:00:33men serving in other theatres of war such as Gallipoli and Palestine.
00:00:38Along the way,
00:00:43we'll meet the different people who cared for the sick and wounded
00:00:43soldiers find out what types of illness and injury men commonly suffered from
00:00:46and look at the treatments,
00:00:51including some key medical innovations that helped save lives during the war.
00:00:52Before we begin our journey, however,
00:00:58I want to start with some background about the
00:01:00provision of medical care to the British armed forces.
00:01:01The majority of such care was provided by the Army
00:01:05Medical Services organised into the Royal Army Medical Corps,
00:01:07or R A M.
00:01:11C.
00:01:12The R. A. M C.
00:01:14Was formed of a number of units, including field ambulances,
00:01:15casualty clearing stations, stationary and general hospitals,
00:01:18hygiene companies and regimental medical
00:01:23officers attached to specific regiments.
00:01:26The I M C was supported by the trained military nurses of the Queen,
00:01:29Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and
00:01:33the Territorial Forces Nursing Service,
00:01:37as well as by a number of volunteer and auxiliary medical units.
00:01:39These volunteers, including the Friends Ambulance Unit, the first aid nurse,
00:01:43Yeoman Re
00:01:48and the Voluntary Aid detachments, or V aids,
00:01:49were for the most part coordinated by the British Red Cross Society, although some,
00:01:52such as the Scottish Women's Hospitals,
00:01:57worked with military medical services of allied nations, including France,
00:01:59Belgium, Italy and Serbia.
00:02:04During the course of our journey along the chain of evacuation,
00:02:08we will be looking at many of these units in more detail.
00:02:11First, however,
00:02:14I want to take a moment to consider the work of the regimental medical
00:02:15officers and hygiene companies in providing day to day medical care for men,
00:02:18because the work of the medical services was two
00:02:24fold to care for the sick and wounded,
00:02:26particularly in moments of crisis such as a major operation or advanced,
00:02:29but also to prevent disease among the troops.
00:02:34Hygiene and day to day care was thus essential.
00:02:38The unit primarily responsible for hygiene were the sanitary companies.
00:02:43These were made up of 25 men and one officer, and by the end of the war,
00:02:49there were 66 working on the Western front.
00:02:53Their responsibility was the prevention of disease,
00:02:57which included infectious diseases and respiratory diseases, Um,
00:02:59and diseases such as meningitis.
00:03:04These were remarkably common, particularly uh,
00:03:08in theatres outside of Europe where infectious diseases, uh,
00:03:11could run riot through, uh, men's living quarters.
00:03:16The responsibilities of the sanitary companies
00:03:21included cleaning and ensuring clean accommodation,
00:03:24citing latrines and kitchens and making sure that
00:03:27these were far enough apart from each other,
00:03:30uh, to prevent infection,
00:03:32and in particular citing latrines so that they were
00:03:34far enough for living from living quarters to prevent infection
00:03:37and ensuring the provision of clean drinking water again.
00:03:41The sighting latrines relative to the supply of drinking
00:03:44water was a particular issue for sanitary companies.
00:03:47They were responsible for this in accommodation
00:03:53in training camps on the home front,
00:03:57um, in rest areas behind the lines, but above all in the trenches themselves,
00:04:00they faced a number of problems in providing hygiene,
00:04:08some to do with men's willingness to, uh, carry their, uh,
00:04:11waste of various types far enough away from their living quarters but also, uh,
00:04:16issues to do with the geography and sighting of the trenches.
00:04:23So there were problems of, uh, flooding entrenches, particularly in the winter,
00:04:28which resulted in 75,000 cases of trench foot across the course of the war.
00:04:34Trench foot is, uh, an illness, uh, in which the skin of the foot becomes infected
00:04:40and when left untreated, could lead, uh, in extreme cases to, uh, amputation of the,
00:04:48uh of either toes or the entire foot itself.
00:04:55There were problems about providing sufficient latrines in the
00:04:59trenches for the number of men and encouraging men to
00:05:02remove their waste far enough away from the trenches
00:05:06when they were required to use portable latrine facilities.
00:05:10The land over which men were fighting, given the static nature of trench warfare,
00:05:16meant that men who died and were buried, uh, in action, uh, in the front line.
00:05:20Their bodies could then be disinterred by further bombardments or actions later on
00:05:28in the war giving rise to the potential for infection from rotting corpses.
00:05:33And then there were the louse borne diseases.
00:05:40Leis were incredibly common in the trenches.
00:05:42Uh, they were incredibly difficult to get rid of.
00:05:45Um, and sanitary companies, along with the men themselves,
00:05:48fought a constant battle against lice.
00:05:53One of the key weapons in this battle were the divisional baths, which, uh, men, uh,
00:05:56took when they were unrest.
00:06:03But bathing properly while in the front line, uh was much more difficult,
00:06:05making the battle against lice more problematic.
00:06:10The work of the sanitary companies was reinforced on a daily basis by
00:06:14the regimental medical officers who worked
00:06:20with the hygiene companies in planning,
00:06:23uh, the geography of, uh, the living conditions in the trenches,
00:06:25but also through regularly inspecting men for conditions
00:06:30such as louse borne diseases or trench foot
00:06:34regimental medical officers were also responsible for instructing men in
00:06:39preventative practises such as removing their waste products and uh,
00:06:43rubbing their feet with whale oil, uh,
00:06:49wearing dry socks and other preventative practises for preventing trench foot.
00:06:52The fact of this training meant that the ultimate responsibility
00:06:57for the prevention of disease lay with the soldier themselves,
00:07:01and it was not always a responsibility
00:07:05that men necessarily wanted in their diaries,
00:07:08the letters and their memoirs.
00:07:11Soldiers very often complain about the burden of
00:07:13daily hygiene that they encountered in the trenches.
00:07:17Regimental medical officers were also responsible for treating minor
00:07:22illnesses and injuries that occurred on a daily basis.
00:07:25Most were deeply conscientious men, but as military officers, which they were,
00:07:30their responsibility was to the military to maintain manpower numbers.
00:07:37To do this,
00:07:42they had to become detectives seeking to spot
00:07:43malingerers rather than necessarily treating every illness,
00:07:47um, at face value when men came to them.
00:07:51As a result, many gained a reputation for being unsympathetic to men who, uh,
00:07:56turned up at the medical parade, uh, too often or with very minor injuries.
00:08:02Um, and that reputation included, uh, one for doling out placebos, Uh,
00:08:07such as the automatic number nine pill.
00:08:14This reputation was in many cases, unfair.
00:08:17The majority of medical officers did a difficult balancing
00:08:22act of caring for their men with sympathy,
00:08:25uh, in face of the demands of military service under very dangerous circumstances,
00:08:29the regimental medical officers served alongside combat
00:08:34it competent units in the front line.
00:08:37However,
00:08:41post war memoirs such as those of Robert Graves and Charles
00:08:42Carrington have left them with a reputation as unsympathetic drunks,
00:08:46which many of them did not deserve.
00:08:51
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Meyer, J. (2021, September 22). Medicine Through Time – The British Sector of the Western Front, 1914-18 - Medicine in the Trenches [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/medicine-throigh-time/medicine-in-the-trenches
MLA style
Meyer, J. "Medicine Through Time – The British Sector of the Western Front, 1914-18 – Medicine in the Trenches." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 22 Sep 2021, https://massolit.io/courses/medicine-throigh-time/medicine-in-the-trenches