in World War [one]
Industrial warfare caused
unprecedented damage to Soldiers bodies
the challenges to medics were huge
The Royal Army medical Corps or our AMC was in charge of looking after their health of the British Army's forces
treating the wounded and saving lives as
A doctor [myself] it's amazing to look what seems to [mine] modernize the very crude equipment. I would have had to use
back in World War one
Today, I'm being allowed to examine [close-up]. The kit used by my predecessors
I'm just looking at a picture of
two stretcher bearers just young guys [actually]
standing there very
straight and proud with their stretchers
One of them is John Hill and this
Is his Satchel?
I'm going to have a look inside to see what a stretcher bearer from world war [one] would have been carrying
silk Sterile Tubes, oh
Wow
these are little vials of
silk
kept sterile in this glass vial
And it would have been used for stitching up wounds so that goes to show [that] even once they were scooping up people they were
Possibly doing first aid along the way as well and under fire
I'm going to carefully put the Lid back on that
[there] would have been 12 of them in there, I
Feel like I'm delving into a little treasure trove could this be a torniquet. I
Think it is this looks like it's all okay that you'd use to stop bleeding
You tie it on the affected limb where you've got a wound [if] it's bleeding out
You go above it and yet you tie this on and wrap it around tight. I'm guessing that this is a ton okay?
I may be wrong, but I can't see what else it would be used for
something else in here
smells [so] old
Was this a bandage well, I think their slings actually yep, they haven't changed much still very much the same
and this
Is bit heavy there's a lantern
Because obviously when they went to pick [up] their casualties at night they had fallen during the day
Wouldn't be able to see anything so they needed a light
Imagine that illuminating yourself as you went to pick up casualties
Just goes to show how brave John Hill and his colleagues were
I've also just found this it's John [Hill's]
nursing dictionary and it's got
abbreviations to
[all] Sorts of technical medical terms and equipment in here and it's really quite interesting
to note because today
I'm always carrying little aid memoirs and pocketbooks of this that and the other on me
And I have my own medical dictionary sitting on my desk at all times
And even then a hundred years ago. He wasn't deploying out into the field without his little aide memoire
And it's well [well-worn]
[lover]
This is an aladdin's cave for me. It tells me so much about what it was like a hundred years ago
And what we've got going on. Here is a royal army medical Corps sergeant
Tending to a royal army medical Corps doctor what I like about this is that it [demonstrates] the reality
Just because you're a medic just because you wear the mMM limp doesn't mean that you're immune to being hit
Guess what this is
It's an x-Ray from a hundred years ago
It's the x-ray of the neck and the bottom of the head of a stretcher bearer and this round dark circle here is
Shrapnel and how do I know it's shrapnel, this is
The exact same shrapnel that you can see in the x-Ray and he also got extra bits of shrapnel in his head as well
What became standard was everyone who had suffered a head or a neck injury was given an X-Ray?
Before world war one started was a brand new technique
Some people had adopted it others hadn't but as a consequence of world war one and the way that it was used so extensively
propelled the use of X-Rays throughout medicine
One of the our AMC's most important jobs was evacuating the wounded from the Battlefield
This is a stretchy cart, and I have to say I'm pretty relieved
I don't have to use this to transport my patients around
But this is precisely
What the medics during world war one were using to transfer their patient around in the field hospital area?
For a patient to get to the field hospital. They'd had a whole journey beforehand from the point of injury
They'd be picked up by the stretcher bearers
Taken to a regimental aid post and then further back
To a dressing station and then further back still to the field hospital
one of the
developments during world war one was the idea that for a patient to really recover fully you had to take them away from
the Chaos and the
[frightening] sounds of
A frontline area to a place where they'd have some peace and quiet some good nursing so that that could enhance their recovery
And what we have here [is]
an original
Operating table from World war one and it's a portable one at that
Look at this look at this these are the handles that we use and it folds down
So that it could have been moved around easily
What I find really profound about this as I touch it is that on this table?
the wounded Soldiers were being operated on by
My predecessors in medicine and surgery I found that really
quite profound
very moving actually
This is where
Techniques were developed that have gone on [to] help us in the way that [we] practice medicine today