Medics, Nurses & Health - First World War

Category: Medics, Nurses & Health --- See Latest World War I news here. See also 'Militaria, Collectibles', 'Last WW1 Veterans', 'Trenches', 'Great War Letters'.

Scottish nurses who defied Whitehall to create hospitals on the Western Front honoured
In 1914, Dr Elsie Inglis, doctor so dedicated that she made Florence Nightingale look like a part-timer, defied the British Government and set up a hospital on the Western Front. Royaumont Abbey Hospital was initially overwhelmed: "Dying men lay huddled so closely together on the floor that they touched each other." Elsie Inglis and her team of female medics from the Scottish Women's Hospital Committee must have had moments when they questioned their ability to deal with this vision of Hell. But Elsie Inglis went on to set up 14 medical units. Now a monument to the Scottish nurses is to be unveiled at Abbaye de Royaumont. [ timesonline :: 2008-06-04 :: Medics, Nurses & Health ]

Soldiers' WWI diaries reveal devilish side of World War I angels
Nurses inflicted pain upon wounded soldiers in WW1 to a shocking degree. Military hospitals have been portrayed as havens run by caring, if overstretched, staff but evidence shows that the reality was different. WW1 Diaries have showed how soldiers endured brutal treatment by the female military nurses and surgeons. Surgeons became hated figures depicted as "Captain Scalpel". The female physiotherapists were "perpetrators of pain who resembled drill sergeants rather than bedside nurturers". Ana Carden-Coyne, who has researched new material for book "Men in Pain", describes how untrained medical staff were recruited. [ timesonline :: 2008-04-28 :: Medics, Nurses & Health ]

Silver Star medal awarded posthumously to World War I nurse
The Army will present the Silver Star to the daughter of a WWI Army nurse Linnie Leckrone who treated wounded soldiers while under artillery fire in 1918. She was authorized the Citation Star for her gallantry while attending to the wounded during an artillery bombardment at Hospital Number 127 July 19, 1918. In 1932, the Silver Star Medal, the nation's third highest valor award, was created to replace the Citation Star. Leckrone's contributions have led to the evolution of Army Nurse Corps. In March 1917, the Army had only 403 nurses, but more than 20,000 more would volunteer during WWI. [ armytimes :: 2007-07-31 :: Medics, Nurses & Health ]

Medic's World War I Western Front diaries for sale
The unpublished WWI journals of Sgt Hubert Harding, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, will be put up for auction after diaries surfaced in a descendant's basement. Journals run through from April 1915 until 1919 and describe how he risked his life at Loos, the Somme, Passchendaele, Vimy Ridge and Cambrai. On the first day of the Somme offensive, July 1, 1916 he wrote: "Lovely morning. Many aeroplanes about. Great offensive starts... Very good results obtained so far." But by the following day his mood had changed: "Commence collecting [casualties] at 6am. Very busy morning with bad stretcher cases. Find out that 8th Div very badly cut up yesterday." [ telegraph :: 2007-06-05 :: Documents, diaries, extracts ]

Angel of the Battle of Passchendale - Nellie Spindler
She was one of a handful of brave women to experience the hell of World War I's bloodiest battlefield. Based deep inside the danger zone, nurse Nellie Spindler saw her field hospital flooded with Allied troops injured from day one of the Battle of Passchendale. The Leeds Infirmary sister was part of the small band of Queen Alexander Imperial Military Nurses sent close to the Western Front. Casualty Clearing Stations (CCS) were situated a safe distance away. But Nellie, treating abdominal wounds, needed to be closer to the action to prevent infection. But after just 3 week she would also join the massive list of fallen heroes. [ leedstoday :: 2007-05-22 :: WW1 Women - Female heroines ]

Absolute misery of life in the First World War trenches
Bombs, bullets and barbed wire made the front line in World War 1 a horrendous experience. But Dr John Charters has explored how, quite apart from the fighting, the appalling living conditions in the trenches added another layer of misery for the troops. He has studied the impact of disease and health breakdown among soldiers caused by factors like lice, vermin, dirt and wet and cold. "If you want an impression of how awful it was, dig a 6ft hole in the garden, fill it with dead dogs and sewage and have the neighbours shoot at you." 300,000 British troops suffered from trench fever during the war. [ icnewcastle :: 2007-05-04 :: Trenches and Fortifications warfare ]

Chailey 1914-1918 tells the story of village community during WW1
Chailey 1914-1918 website tells the story about a village community during the First World War. It contains the biographies of over 500 Chailey men, wounded World War 1 soldiers and Sussex 54 VAD nurses. Chailey 1914-1918 is a tribute to the men and women of Chailey during the First World War: those who nursed or were nursed there; those who answered their country's call; those who lie in some corner of a foreign field. Photographs of wounded soldiers at Beechlands are scattered throughout the site and have also been grouped on a separate page. [ chailey :: 2007-02-11 :: Home Front Civilians ]

Medic's diary reveals the Western Front horrors in World War 1
Soldier recorded the savagery of life on the Western Front in World War 1. There is an entry in the First World War diary of field medic William Alchorne which gives a snapshot of the brutality of trench warfare. He describes how some infantry soldiers came across a kitten pinned with a bayonet to a wooden door in a deserted German dug-out. One soldier began removing it, only for the booby-trapped carcass to explode and maim him. It is of particular value historically as during the Great War any soldier found keeping a diary faced a court martial. Military top brass would only allow censored letters to be sent from the frontline in a propaganda bid to preserve morale. [ leedstoday :: 2006-08-30 :: Documents, diaries, extracts ]

True heroines of the First World War battlefields
In the trenches, men as young as 16 prepare for the latest push over the top - that will lead to many of their deaths. And a few miles from the war zone a group of women struggle to tend to the massive number of casualties. Alongside their founder, Dr Elsie Inglis, these members of the Scottish Women's Hospitals Service are faced with a daily routine of blood and death as they strive to keep alive the young soldiers cut down by gunfire. But although their base at Royaumont Abbey was one of the most important centres for medical aid during the war, many of the stories about how these women have remained unknown. Dr Elsie Dalyell was one of the most respected and experienced doctors who worked at Royaumont during the war... [ leithhistory :: 2006-05-24 :: WW1 Women - Female heroines ]

Military madness of diggers lost in legend
Buried alive four times - once at Gallipoli and three times in France - by 1916 "Private A" could not stop the tremor of his head or limbs. Madness and the Military: Australia's Experience of the Great War, by Michael Tyquin is the first comprehensive study on mental illness in WWI. It shatters the stereotype of the tough Anzac, an icon that Australians look up to - but which never existed. Major Tyquin says of the soldiers who were "mentally shattered" by the war - some of whom recovered, though many did not - "I think we've erased them from our public memory. We like to celebrate Anzac, and there's no place in that myth for anyone that's less than perfect." [ smh :: 2006-04-24 :: Medics, Nurses & Health ]

A rare medal won by a war heroine has sold for more than £3,000
The Military Medal was awarded to nurse Kate Carruthers for showing bravery in the face of the enemy during the First World War. Miss Carruthers was one of only a few women to receive the award for her heroic efforts in treating the wounded on the frontline. The 30-year-old nurse was stationed on the Western Front in 1917 when her field hospital came under attack. She was injured in the fighting but battled bravely through the pain barrier to continue treating the wounded. In 1917 she became one of only a few women to be awarded the prestigious Military Medal, which was created by King George V in 1916. [ coinbooks :: 2006-04-11 :: WW1 Women - Female heroines ]

Play remembers female war doctor - The Influence of Beauty
A play which tells the story of a female doctor who treated wounded soldiers on the frontline during WWI has opened in Oxford. The play is based on the diaries of Dr Dorothea Clara Maude who was a graduate of Oxford University. She served in five hospitals in France, Belgium and Serbia during the war despite the British Government telling female physicians to remain at home. "The Influence of Beauty" is being staged at the Osler-McGovern Centre. [ bbc :: 2006-02-17 :: WW1 Women - Female heroines ]

The health benefits of the trenches
Lyn Macdonald, a historian and the author of a number of books on the First World War, once made the point that in more than 1,500 hours of recorded interviews with veterans about their experiences on the Western Front, not one of them used the word "horror" - the word that springs to mind today when considering those terrible four years of conflict. This is partly because the world was a very different place 90 years ago. [ telegraph :: 2004-06-07 :: Medics, Nurses & Health ]

Influenzia in the First World War
In the spring of 1918 large numbers of soldiers in the trenches in France became ill. The soldiers complained of a sore throat, headaches and a loss of appetite. Although it appeared to be highly infectious, recovery was rapid and doctors gave it the name of 'three-day fever'. At first doctors were unable to identify the illness but eventually they decided it was a new strain of influenza. The soldiers gave it the name Spanish Flu, and in Spain they called it French Flu. Others claimed that the disease started in the Middle Eastern battlefields. A recent study argued that the disease was brought to the Western Front by a group of USA soldiers from Kansas. [ spartacus :: 2001-04-15 :: Spanish Flu Pandemic: 1918 Influenza ]

First World War in the News is an edited review of hand-picked World War I 1914-1918 articles.