The Great War took a devastating toll on Europe. But such trauma also paved the way for these incredible World War One medical innovations.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I , which rupture through Europe from 1914 to 1918 and took millions of lives with it . Though most masses who would call back the issue are gone , the Great War still reverberate through our lives even today . In fact , many life - carry through medical innovations that we now take for granted were make during that period by field surgeons and nurse who needed to answer cursorily to a number of potentially fatal ailments .
A church service converted for the entirety of the warfare as an American army field hospital . Source : Getty Images
Blood transfusions , which help prevent patient from dying of stupor or profligate passing , started to be used just before the state of war . It was n’t until the the warfare began , though , that the proficiency was rightfully put to the tryout .
A church converted for the entirety of the war as an American army field hospital. Source:Getty Images
A German blood transfusion kit up circa early 20th century . reservoir : eBay
Sepsis , an all - too - rough-cut hospital malady back then , was beaten with the invention of antiseptics . And though it sounds obvious to us today , it was also during WWI that practicing secure hygienics and cleanliness in hospital became a prominent strategy for disease bar . Penicillin was n’t discovered until 1928 , a decade after the armistice that ended the war in 1918 . But even without antibiotics , WWI surgeons brought us out of medicinal drug ’s coloured eld .
Paraplegic soldier are give care for at a WWI root infirmary . origin : State of Alaska
A German blood transfusion kit circa early 20th century. Source:eBay
One of the terrible realities of life-time as a soldier in the Great War was accelerator pedal : mustard , atomic number 17 , and phosgene . As you might bear , the gas mask was devise during WWI to anticipate the toxins ’ potentially fatal consequence . An early version can be see on both soldiers and state of war horses in this photo .
reference : The Mirror
If you desire to learn about what being gassed feel like , watch out as Jake Gyllenhaal show a verse form about it by soldier poet Wilfred Owen . “ Dulce et decorousness Est ” is perhaps the best - known poem from the war . When transform from Latin , the full phrase appearing in the poem intend “ It is sweet and right to die for your country . ”
Paraplegic soldiers are cared for at a WWI base hospital. Source:State of Alaska
In the last year of the warfare , the Spanish Flu pandemic hit . intemperately . It killed 50 million people worldwide in just a few year , even before the growing phone number of scientific innovations that had previously economize thousand of lives . That ’s more deaths than the integrality of WWI , which clocked in at 35 million .
A backpack flu ward in 1918 . Source : PBS
And if the Spanish Flu or the trenches did n’t bolt down you , shell shock would – at least in an emotional sentiency . Doctors initially render the condition such a name since they think it to be the resultant role of a physical contusion on the brain leave by nearby exploding shells . The video below describes the ailment well .
Source:The Mirror
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nsSkL3Yl0rA?t=37s
The symptoms of shell shock have devolve in warfare after warfare . We now sleep with it as post - traumatic stress upset , or PTSD , but there were plenty of names for it along the way . Watch George Carlin give a lesson on the matter .
But there was another , sometimes lighter , for certain odder side to medicinal drug in the World War I era . What follows is a interracial bag of medical instruments . In the first image , the software system reads : “ Guaranteed to contain Real Refined Radium and to be perfectly harmless . ” Radium was all the rage in the early twentieth century , manifest itself in everything from toothpaste to children ’s toy . It had just been discovered by Marie Curie in 1898 , who set apart the constituent a few class later . Companies in France , America , and other nations seize on the news by claiming that radium could cure a wide variety of ills .
A packed flu ward in 1918. Source:PBS
Source : Oak Ridge Associated Universities
As the company ’s brochure stated : “ debile Discouraged Men ! Now Bubble Over with Joyous Vitality Through the Use of Glands and Radium . ” Yes , apparently radium could fix those slacker glands and get the user a “ brisk step , mental alertness and the power to hold up and love in the full sentiency of the Holy Writ . ” The company proclaimed that sexual pleasure was a man ’s “ patrimony . ”
Source:Oak Ridge Associated Universities
