Surgical Improvements from World War One

World War I was a war of innovation with new artillery and tactics, but also a deadly war in which approximately ten million soldiers died in or injuries sustained from battle. As injuries increased throughout the war, the need for medical assistance was constantly growing. Surgery is considered an art and like art, it evolved and new techniques were developed, making an injury that could kill someone survivable. For instance, in the Civil War most surgeons would immediately amputate and in World War I surgeons began trying much harder to save limbs. Blood transfusion allowed surgeons to reduce patient death from blood loss because of the ample supply of blood from fellow soldiers. Sanitation improvements led to fewer deaths from infection and spreading effective ways to avoid getting sick, making room for those with more urgent conditions. World War I was a gruesome war that led to millions of deaths; however, one positive consequence of this was the improvement in surgery and medical techniques.

During World War I, surgery was not as complex as today and surgeons faced more problems concerning patient to staff ratio, lack of space, lack of supplies, and variation of injuries. In the Sydney-Emden Engagement, Leonard Darby talks about how once the first patient came in, many more followed. Surgeons were often performing surgery on ships during naval battles, receiving patients as they were injured. On the H.M.A.S Sydney, there were approximately seventy wounded, thirty-five to forty of those containing serious cases. The surgeons on ship only had two bathrooms. They were used as operating theatre patients with severe injuries that required several procedures This left other patients awaiting care with many in serious pain. For i...

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...onor very important to the process of transfusion. Finding willing donors was not the difficulty, finding perfect candidates was. The ideal candidate would be eighteen to twenty-five because a younger man would less likely have diseases. Once a blood donor is chosen, their blood is tested with the Wassermann Reaction test which determined if a donor had syphilis or other diseases. The donor blood is also tested to see which recipient their blood is compatible with. This is much like current day donor/recipient matching where certain blood types can be used on certain blood types. If a blood transfusion were to fail, the recipient could suffer side effects like blood in the urine, urticarial rash, vomiting, and headaches. If a patient suffered from hemoglobinuria, rapid increasing of hemoglobin or damaged corpuscles they would die from suppression of urine. (Keynes)