Page 38 - QARANC Vol 17 No 1 2019

36 QARANC THE GAZETTE
Sisters quarters, The 1st Southern General Hospital, University of Birmingham
The Great Hall, University of Birmingham
the hospital had received 21 convoys, treated 3892 patients and expanded to 800 beds. Photographs, displayed during the memorial event, show the ‘overflow’ tents erected in Chancellors’ Court to meet the demand.
Preparations for a possible conflict with Germany began years prior to the start of the War. They had been drawn up in 1908 for buildings around Birmingham to be used as hospitals. During planning, it was reported to the Hospital Committee that the nursing duties would be ‘familiar, with not more than half of the cases being gunshot and sword wounds’. However, the scale and duration of the War, and novel weaponry had an unprecedented impact, resulting in casualties and injuries that the hospital staff were not prepared or trained for.
The increasing sophistication of scientific and engineering practices saw the introduction of novel weapons such as flamethrowers and chemical weapons. Whilst researchers created defensive systems against these weapons, medical personnel worked hard to develop procedures and treatments. The use of chemical weapons accounted for less than 1% of fatalities; however, the large number of casualties that resulted (around 7%) suffered the horrific consequences for years, with some casualties never fully recovering.
During the War the machine gun (invented in 1884) was honed and refined to devastating effect. Soldiers’ bodies were protected by the trenches and helmets provided some head
The Great Hall, University of Birmingham
protection, but the lower part of their faces were left exposed, resulting in complex jaw and facial injuries not previously
seen. Surgeons at the 1st Southern General Hospital were quick
to adopt pioneering reconstruction techniques, such as skin grafting developed by Sir Harold
Gillies in Aldershot. Some of the surgeons’ notes describing how to perform bone grafts and pictures
of patients were on display during the memorial event.
The 1st Southern General Hospital went on to treat approximately 65,165
casualties and by the end of 1916 there were 578 staff including nurses from the Territorial Force Nursing Service and Voluntary Aid Detachments (VAD). By January 1918 6,000 inpatient, convalescent and mental health beds had been created across Birmingham, with many schools and large private houses, such as Highbury Hall, being loaned or donated to the War effort. In total, over the four-year period, the City of Birmingham treated and cared for more than 125,000 casualties, including German Prisoners of War, from across the Empire, Belgium, Serbia,
and America.
A century on, the impact of the First World War still
resonates and many ground-breaking medical treatments, such as blood transfusions, underpin our modern healthcare.
Major Helen Towler
References
University of Birmingham (2018). Beyond the Battlefields: Käthe Buchler’s photographs of Germany in the Great War
University of Birmingham (2018). Remembering the Great War
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2376985/
http://chemicalweapons.cenmag.org/when-chemicals- became-weapons-of-war/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31042472
The Southern Cross, Journal of 1st Southern General Hospital