Page 8 - RADC 2015

WATERCOLOURS
A dental surgeon treating a patient in a eld treatment tent using a treadle drill with operating light powered by an electric generator. Illustration inspired by a photograph of a WW1 treatment tent circa. 1915 from a collection of the British Dental Association Museum.
The origin of the Philip Bannister First World
In 2014 the British Dental Journal commissioned Philip Bannister to produce a series of watercolour images for the front covers of Volume 217 of the British Dental Journal to commemorate the centenary of the start of WW1.
The Army Medical Services (AMS) Museum decided, like many other Museums in 2014, to provide an exhibition demonstrating the contributions made by serving personnel to the war effort during the period 1914-1918. The AMS Museum is the historical archive of the four Corps of the Army Medical Services (AMS).
The Exhibition was going to be sadly lacking in any dental artefacts from the First World War. In the intervening period between the end of the Boer War in South Africa and start of the First World War the War Of ce had failed to have taken any action with regard to lessons learned in the Boer War and problems caused by the lack and inability to provide dental treatment ‘in
the eld’ to the serving soldier. It was only when General Haigh developed severe toothache at the Battle of the Aisne in 1915 and found there were no dental facilities available at the ‘front’ that
6 RADC BULLETIN 2015