The militarization
of medical personnel
During the Great War, the Italian medical system had to manage the transport, treatment, and hospitalization of more than 2.5 million wounded and sick soldiers. This task was entrusted to the soldiers of the Military Medical Corps, the Italian Red Cross, and the nursing staff, who were also volunteers. The base Military Medical Operations Unit at the front was Medical Services, which was headed by a surgeon captain and composed of a commanding lieutenant, one or two aspiring junior medical officers, a military chaplain, and about thirty military nurses.
Medical units were created that were equipped with mules or horses for the evacuation of the wounded from the front lines. The search for the wounded on the battlefield, which usually took place at night, was carried out by the medical dogs trained for this important service.
Storo Field Hospital – Historical Archive of Il Chiese di Storo Association
The base Military Medical Operations Unit at the front was Medical Services, which was headed by 1 surgeon captain and composed of 1 commanding lieutenant, 1 or 2 aspiring junior medical officers, 1 military chaplain, and about thirty military nurses.
Soldiers were each provided with a medication package consisting of two gauzes, one bandage, and a vial of iodine tincture.
Storo Field Hospital – Historical Archive of Il Chiese di Storo Association
Immediately behind the front lines were the aid stations, where the wounded were summarily bandaged and treated. Anesthesia was performed with ether, chloroform and morphine, but pain was mainly managed with cognac.
Subsequently, the wounded reached the field hospitals where the most battered were operated on and then sent to the rear lines. The entire rear area was filled with these field hospitals, arranged near major roads or railways, inside schools, in hospitals or in spacious manor houses. To decongest the medical facilities in war zones as much as possible, the wounded were later also admitted to “hospital ships” and “hospital trains”.
Mortality among the wounded was frighteningly high, due to both the poor medical knowledge of the time and the lack of hygiene, which often caused fatal infections and resulted in the death of 30% of those hospitalized. Vaccinations against typhoid, tetanus and cholera were increasingly common, although diseases such as dysentery, malaria and rheumatism, not to mention lice, were constantly lurking.
Neuropsychiatric disorders also made their appearance and were often unrecognized or mistaken for soldiers faking an illness or other insubordination. This resulted in various forms of mental exhaustion that at times led to actual madness. Psychological damage could not be remedied through appropriate treatment given the lack of knowledge in the field of neuropsychiatry. After the war, many young people, now emotionally fragile or disabled by the terrible experiences they had lived through, were branded as having shell shock.
Source: “La sanità negli anni della Grande Guerra” – PAT Azienda Provinciale per i Servizi Sanitari – Trento (Italy)