Repairing the human damage: World War I

World War I causes injuries and illness on a scale and of a kind not seen before. But treating soldiers, shown here in a French hospital, leads to improvements in medicine generally.

A soldier receives electrotherapy to stimulate the nerves and muscles in his paralysed arm. Others receive physiotherapy. New techniques of wound management, surgery and infection control are developed. There are shrapnel wounds, fractures, burns and more permanent injuries: amputations, blindness and lung damage from gassing. Some survivors suffer from shell shock and other psychiatric disturbances.

French Pathé: news footage.

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