World War 1 Medical Terms

[Retlaw]

Margaret.
I was going to send the attached as a private message but the dammed thing won't let me.
This is part of a mans medical report sheet, I've trimmed it down and enhanced the writing, says 3 weeks treatment but he was in Queen Mary's for 3 months

Retlaw

[Margaret Pilkington]

Retlaw it does look like it was an inflammatory connective tissue disorder.......and this would cover any kind of soft tissue injury.

My reading of this medical record is that the soldier needed ICT treatment for at least two weeks,(obviously an optimistic prognosis) then there is an entry that noted the injury to be healed, following that,it reads 'dispersed'...where I guess we would put discharged(although maybe because it related to the military they used dispersed as an alternative term for sending the man back to either his unit of his family).

I think these injuries took a long time to heal because of the nature of the wounds, and how they were caused.
General poor nutrition and existing health would have a bearing too.
Also, at that time there would not have been the antibiotic therapy available so the medical staff would have to use just cleaning techniques and debridement of dead tissue(cutting it away) they may even have used maggots to remove dead and infected tissue.
Interesting to read the notes. Those lads really suffered.

Anyway it looks like mystery solved.

[Retlaw]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

Retlaw it does look like it was an inflammatory connective tissue disorder.......and this would cover any kind of soft tissue injury.

My reading of this medical record is that the soldier needed ICT treatment for at least two weeks,(obviously an optimistic prognosis) then there is an entry that noted the injury to be healed, following that,it reads 'dispersed'...where I guess we would put discharged(although maybe because it related to the military they used dispersed as an alternative term for sending the man back to either his unit of his family).

Hi Margaret.
When a man was sent home from France or the M.E.F., for medical reasons he was always shown on documents as posted to the Depot Bttn, even if he never went there. If treatment was prolonged he would on rcovery be sent to the retraining Bttn, then sometimes renumbered and sent to a new Battn or even a new Regiment, very few returned to their old Bttn. In the above mans case he was sent to one of the dispersal units, they were at Heaton Park, Prees Heath and Oswestry.
Got another one for you P.U.O.

Retlaw.

[Margaret Pilkington]

P.U.O. is the abbreviation for Pyrexia of Unknown Origin......so this soldier woould have had a raging temperature with no obvious cause for it......there would be no suppurating wound/infection visible, yet he would have had a regularly raised temperature.

[Retlaw]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

P.U.O. is the abbreviation for Pyrexia of Unknown Origin......so this soldier woould have had a raging temperature with no obvious cause for it......there would be no suppurating wound/infection visible, yet he would have had a regularly raised temperature.

I think I know the answer of the origin of that illness, you will have heard the expression up to hear in muck and bullets, its not far off, but short of reality
Trenches were not in straight lines, but zigzagged every 15 yards or so, six foot deep with about a foot of mud in the bottom, every 10 sections there would be pit with a tub in it, that was the platoon toilet, you went into the trenches for 4 or more days at a time, taking with you iron rations and water, food and water was supposed to be brought up from the rear twice a day if you were lucky, there were more rats than men in the trenches. Meal time, food delivered in big covered tins, shell lands on platoon toilet, some of your first meal of the day gets splashed with sh1t, do you eat it or refuse, not knowing when the next meal will come through.
Just made a brew with your mates in a tommy cooker & another shell lands, blood and other stuff lands in it, what do you do.
Its a wonder any survived the diseases, dysentry was rife in the trenches, along with trench foot, standing in water all day, trench fever caused by the same conditions.

Up to here in muck and bullets is a mild expression.
Especially when all your mates keep getting killed or wounded, and you'd got belly ache from the last meal.
Next you've got the nearest field hospital, your the 25th man to require emergency wound treatment on the table that day, operating table swilled off, instruments still covered in blood from the last patient, stitched up, bandaged and carted away to Casualty Clearing Stations, then transported by road or rail to Calais and shipped to England, to get proper treatment, if you have'nt died in the meantime.
Retlaw.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Yes, and that is one of the reasons that men who were shipped out for medical treatment like the ICT took so long to get better. They were in a very poor condition to start with, and had very few (if any) bodily reserves to help them fight off infection......and No antibiotics on the scene either.
It is amazing that any of them survived at all.

[jaysay]

Those were very hard times, I know my Grandfather (my Fathers father) was gassed over in France and never really got over it, he died when my Dad was only 14 years old, with related problems

[Gremlin]

Just after the war a lot of kids had bits of things from the soldiers and one kid near me had a whistle.
A neighbour had come back from the war after being shot while landing with a parachute and treated badly.
I remember when the lad with the whistle blew it the old soldier came running out into our lane screaming and sobbing and had to be coaxed back indoors by his wife. It seems that the whistle was the Germans signal for the prisoners to line up for a bashing.
It took a long time for him to recover from mental problems yet he looked as though he hadn't got a scratch on his body

[CHAZ1975]

Originally Posted by jaysay

Those were very hard times, I know my Grandfather (my Fathers father) was gassed over in France and never really got over it, he died when my Dad was only 14 years old, with related problems

sounds familiar , my gt gt grandfather was gassed also , he spent 2 months in a military hospital but suffered with chest and breathing difficulties for the rest of his life , he died of pnuemonia in 1962 the third time he had it