Medical Advances During Ww1 Essay

During World War 1, medical advancements were inspired by the medical challenges during the war. The medical innovations that came from WW1 are still in use today such as the flu shot, which has prevented millions of people from getting the virus, the invention of blood transfusion, and the invention of plastic surgery by Harold Gillies.

In previous wars, it was the illnesses and the lack of antibiotics that caused the deaths of the majority of soldiers but during World War 1, it was the battle injuries and unknown infections that caused the majority of casualties. The Spanish Influenza or the Flu Epidemic caused many nurses, surgeons, as well as soldiers, to be infected with this very contagious and incurable disease. As the war was winding

Before blood transfusions were in use, soldiers kept dying because of the severe blood loss they were experiencing and no one could do much once someone lost a certain amount of blood. In 1914-1915, the use of “sodium citrate anticoagulant was introduced by Albert Hustin, Luis Agote, and Richard Lewisohn” (Pierce 3), which allowed the blood to be stored for a few days and “ended the need for donor and recipient to be in the same room” (Pierce 5). Once the war began, the transfusions done by the French and British doctors used “older, more direct methods” (Pierce 2). The greatest cause of excessive blood loss was caused by the wounded shock towards their injuries. In 1917, more physicians became familiar with transfusions and that is when Robertson drew up the plans for the every first blood bank. The using of preserved blood allowed it to be able to be “stockpiled and ready for use whenever needed” (Pierce 8). Transfusions not only treated the shock the wounded would experience to their own wounds but also was used “successively during procedures and in treating carbon monoxide poisoning, septicemia, and chronic wound infections” (Pierce 5). World War 1 not only introduced new transfusion methods but also educated more doctors and physicians in the process of how to store blood and successively execute a blood

Harold Gillies on soldiers. His first plastic surgery was performed on soldier William Spreckley. Spreckley was “admitted to the hospital in January 1917 with a gunshot wound to the nose” (Furness 2). Dr. Harold Gillies is known for being “the pioneer behind plastic surgery” (Furness 4). Gillies performed surgery on wounded and “disfigured soldiers” (Furness 3), which allowed them to continue living a full life. Gillies most “ground-breaking work” was when he introduce “the tubed pedicle, which used the patients’ own tissue to be used to patch unsightly wounds with reconstructive surgery” (Furness 5). Without Gillies use of the person’s own tissue to fix their own wounds, the lives of many soldiers back in WW1 would have been made much shorter and they would have had to live with their face deformities from war. This innovation of plastic surgery is still used today but in a much different sense; plastic surgery is looked at now as something you do when you dislike something about yourself. For example, if you think your nose is too big, then you would get a nose job whereas back in the days of Gillies plastic surgery, they were only done when needed like wounded soldiers with a gunshot wound to the face. Because of Gillies innovation, soldiers wounded in battle were able to continue living their life without suffering the major disfigurations