The Hunterian oration on British military surgery in the time of Hunter and in the Great War : delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of England on February 14th, 1919, the anniversary of Hunter's birth / by Sir Anthony Bowlby.

  • Bowlby, Anthony A. (Anthony Alfred), Sir, 1855-1929.
Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Hunterian oration on British military surgery in the time of Hunter and in the Great War : delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of England on February 14th, 1919, the anniversary of Hunter's birth / by Sir Anthony Bowlby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    recorded, for on this occasion many of the best known and most representative surgeons from the United States, from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa were included in the reinforcing surgical teams,” or else were on the staffs of the casualty clearing stations of the armies concerned. Thus, for the first time in history, the surgical skill and talent of all the various sections of the Anglo- Saxon race were brought together on a battle-field, and with the happiest possible results to the wounded men. On this occasion, because of the absence of heavy fighting in other armies, more surgeons were available than at any other period, and no clearing station had less than twenty-four surgeons and twenty-four nurses. It was therefore possible to keep eight operating tables in action in every unit, and there is no doubt that almost every wounded man whose condition made it advisable was passed through the operating theatre before being sent by ambulance train to the base. The war of movement which characterised the closing stages of the campaign called for the develop¬ ment of new methods of meeting the situation thus created. Of the details of these a great deal might be written which would be too lengthy for the present occasion, but this much may be said. The clearing stations were sufficiently reduced in the bulk of their equipment to enable them to be rapidly moved forward, and they were frequently able to take in and treat many hundreds of men within twenty-four hours of their arrival on a new site, while at no time during the whole campaign was there more