Due to the large size of the armies mobilized during the conflict and the heavy casualties that occurred, the military medical services had to face unprecedented challenges. Had to evacuate the wounded from the front lines at night or using the techniques of "fire barrier" (groups of porters risky to go out looking injured in a fire protection).
medical officers rendered first aid in makeshift shelters at the same time, they were inventing new drainage systems increasingly specialized into more remote areas of the fronts.
On the Western Front, motorized ambulances were breaking through among those drawn by horses, moreover, these ambulances were grouped into military ambulance corps.
The British, on the other hand created the so-called clinics, consisting of mobile hospitals, located a few kilometers from the front, outside the range of artillery light (not the heaviest) and in which the surgical teams were relieved in some operating rooms that could accommodate up to 4 or 5 simultaneous operations. They cared so much to those who needed immediate surgery and those who were too ill to move.
military medicine when he discovered he had a new world of wounds, infections and diseases hitherto unknown or poorly documented. Beyond the daily amputations and extraction of projectiles and / or shrapnel, surgeons found that the grenades tore the bone and muscle injuries Leaving the air impossible to close, so the French countryside, replete microscopic organisms, caused gas gangrene and tetanus.
surgeons also found new situations such as surgical shock, the "trench foot" (putrefaction of the foot as a result of a continuous moisture and cold), eye irritation and / or severe throat by war gases, burns, chronic skin by Not to mention the "war neurosis" that produced attacks of hysteria in soldiers, disorientation, paralysis, disobeying orders etc ...
lice was rampant, was also found that carriers of typhoid that became known for a while "trench fever."
But the necessities of war and the experience of it stimulated great strides in medicine. For example, it was discovered the importance of continuously irrigated the wounds, blood transfusions were performed in the middle of the battle in some cases with stored blood and with no immediate donor, dispensaries were set up equipment to locate shrapnel RX bullets etc ...
This leads to a controversial relexión: how advanced the science (not just health) because of the great events of the war of our humanity? Compensates us have progressed through similar paths?. The Doctors Nazi death camps of the Third Reich we respond "a lot" and "yes" to those questions. But their responses are to a close and controversial post.
0 comments:
Post a Comment