A field surgery pocket book : memoranda mainly based on experience in the present war / prepared under the direction of the Director General of Army Medical Services.

Date:
1944
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A field surgery pocket book : memoranda mainly based on experience in the present war / prepared under the direction of the Director General of Army Medical Services. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    FIELD SURGERY POCKET BOOK INTRODUCTION (by the Consulting Surgeon to the Army) 1, This Pocket Book should be regarded as a directive on Surgery in the Field. It is in no sense of the word a treatise on what is commonly called ‘“‘ Military Surgery.’’ Its aim is to raise the standard of surgery in the Field to the highest possible level by directing the efforts of Army surgeons into certain channels and by stimulating their interest. To this end it indicates and recommends the lines on which they should work when dealing with casualties. The advice proffered and the methods described in the various sections are those which the Army Surgical Consultants and other experts who advise the War Office consider most likely to produce the best results in the light of our present knowledge and experience. Moreover, because the views and opinions of the surgeons who have been engaged in doing this work in the Field have been incorporated, this Pocket Book may be regarded as reflecting the views of Army surgeons and record- ing the trend of Field Surgery in the British Army in 1944. 2. The Place of Surgery in a Medical Organization for a Field Force. There can be no two views on the importance of surgery in the Field, particularly that which is done in the ‘‘ forward areas.’”” None will deny that surgery alone can save the lives or limbs of many wounded men, nor that these primary operations, if performed early, constitute one of the most potent factors, not only in maintaining an Army up to strength, but in keeping up fighting morale. Wounds promptly and properly treated heal the quicker and leave a minimum of residual disability. It is, there- fore, a matter of National as well as Military importance that this surgery should be as effective as we can make it. There is no place here for the inexperienced surgeon. The work is difficult, often extensive, and calls for the finest judgment. It entails severe physical and mental strain, and during a “‘rush”’ period the strength of any surgeon who is not young or physically fit enough to stand up to it will be severely taxed. We know that often a surgeon with considerable experience of civil or “ blitz ’’ surgery, working for the first time under Field conditions, is hiable to make costly mistakes. Under these circumstances, which are at first entirely new and strange to him, he may be prone to forget even basic surgical principles. What is more, by adhering too closely to an individual technique which had always been found to work well enough in civil practice, he may jeopardize the patient’s chances. He may forget, in the first place, that the conditions are completely different, and secondly, that the case cannot remain under his personal care but must be evacuated at once to become the patient of another doctor who may neither understand lies the argument for as much simplicity and standardization in method as is practicable. There are times, of course, when circumstances, or the military situation, may demand the adoption of a much modified technique. When a surgeon joins the Army he will find that his equipment includes everything that is really necessary, but he will have to accustom himself |