Western Front, 1914-18, Conditions requiring medical treatment

Ill health

Trench fever

Cause: Transmitted by body lice

Symptoms: Flu like symptoms: high temperature, severe headaches, shivering and aching muscles

Treatment: Drugs were trialled, such as quinine and Salvarsan, but without success. Passing an electric current through the affected area was used effectivly

Prevention: By 1918 the cause had been identified as lice

  • Clothes were disinfected with repellent gel
  • Delousing stations were set up

Impact: Affected nearly half a million men on the Western Front

Trench foot

Cause: Soldiers stood in the mud and waterlogged trenches, which caused painful swelling in their feet

Symptoms: Tight boots added to the problem because they restricted the blood flow. Later, gangrene would set in

Treatment: Soldiers were advised to clean and dry their feet. In the worst cases, amputation

Prevention:

  • changing socks and keeping feet dry
    • Rubbing whale oil into feet to protect them

Impact: During the winter of 1914 and 1915 over 20,000 allied men were affected

Shell- shock

Cause: stressful conditions of war

Symptoms: Tiredness, nightmares, headaches, uncontrollable shaking and a mental breakdown

Prevention: The condition was not well understood during the war

Treatment:

  • Mainly consisted of rest
  • some soldiers received treatment back in Britain

Impact: It is estimated that 80.000 British troops experienced shell shock. Some men were accused of cowardice. Punishments for this included being shot

Weapons of war

Rifles

Which created automatic rapid fire, rather than one bullet at a time

Bullets were pointed so that they drove deeper into the body

Machine guns

Loaded from a cartridge case

Had more speed than rifles and could fire 500 rounds a minute

They devastated attacking forces advancing over No man's land

Bullets from machine guns and rifles, would pierce organs and fracture bones

Artillery

Shrapnel

Throughout the war cannons grew bigger and became more powerful

Such as the British howitzer which could send 900- kilogram shells

Bombardments were continous and in some cases lasted weeks and months.

Artillary fire caused half of all casualties

Caused maximum damage as it exploded mid air above the enemy

It was most effective against troops advancing across No man's land, while shells targeted soldiers in the trenches

An exploded shell or shrapnel could immediately kill or injure a soldier

Together these were responsible for 58% of wounds. In most cases, shrapnel injured the arms and legs of soldiers

Head injuries

Soldiers experienced an increased number of head injuries as a result of all the weapons listed

In 1915 a steel helmet replaced the soft caps of soldiers

In a trail it was estimated that the helmet reduced fatal head injuries by 80%

Gas attacks

Chlorine

First used by Germans in 1915

Led to death by suffocation

In July 1915, gas masks were given to all British troops. Before this soldiers would urinate on handkerchiefs and hold these to their faces to prevent the gas getting into their lungs

Phosgene

First used by Germans in 1915

Faster acting than chlorine, but with similar effects

Could kill an exposed person within 2 days

Mustard

First used by Germans in 1917

An ouderless gas that worked in 12 hours

Caused blisters and could burn the skin through clothing

Gas was the cause of fewer than 5% of British deaths

Hard to target a particular place with gas and so it was not used regualary as a weapon in the first world war

Effects of gas attacks were

Blindess

loss of taste

smell and coughing- only lasted for a couple of weeks

Sufferers were given oxygen and had their skin cleared

Infection

Bullets and shrapnel drove deeper into the body, than ever before

This meant the material they carried went deeper into the body e.g fragments of muddy clothing and soil causing infection

Many men could've recovered from the initial injury suffered, however the infection lead to death

The impact of infection on death rates was major compared to previous

Possibly due to the western front battle fields being farmland (manured year in and out) bullets carried tiny fragments of manure)