Source A, a photograph of a soldier at Queen Mary’s hospital, 1918
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Background information
1 Describe key features. One key feature of treatment of wounds is plastic surgery. For example Harold Gillies developed methods to grow skin around tubes to stretch over extensive shrapnel wounds this was one of the first methods of plastic surgery A second key feature of treatments of wounds is plastic surgery. For example this was a new type of surgery developed during world war 1 due to the volume of soldiers receiving facial injuries Gillies established Queen Marys’ hospital in Sidcup especially for these wounds. |
2a How useful is Source A for telling us about treatment of wounds in World War One?
Source A is useful for telling an historian about the treatment of wounds in World War One, as it shows the methods used to treat shrapnel wounds to the face. Due to the new types of weapons used during WW1, facial and brain injuries were common. This led to a demand for plastic surgery to rectify these wounds. The photo shows the method founded by Harold Gilles, he inserted tubes into the patient’s face this enabled new skin to grow around the tubes, and he would then use the skin grown to replace the skin lost due to the extent of the wound. This source is useful as it visually shows the method being used, as a photograph this would be fairly comprehensive image of the technique. Also this was taken at Queen Mary’s the specialist hospital developed for these injuries.
However, the source is limited as it only shows one type of treatments of wounds, plastic surgery. We know that other treatments were taking place in WW1 due to the extent of injuries but this only reflects one. Also, this image was taken in England and only shows part of the treatment process, it is not a comprehensive look at the process the patient would have gone through to get to this point. Furthermore we have no idea of who took the photo and for what purpose.