Exposure to a First World War blistering agent.
(1/19)
Sulfur mustards act as vesicants and alkylating agents. They have been used as chemical warfare since 1917 during the first world war. This brief report illustrates the progression of injury on a primary exposed patient to a first world war blistering agent. This case documents the rapid timeline and progression of symptoms. It emphasises the importance of appropriate personal protective equipment and immediate medical response plan with rapid decontamination and proper action from military and civilian medical treatment facilities. This case reports the first US active duty military exposure to a blistering agent in the age of global terrorism. (+info)
Redefining cancer during the interwar period: British medical officers of health, state policy, managerialism, and public health.
(2/19)
The implementation of radiation technologies within the British hospital system was a significant element in the establishment of the managerial organization of medicine in the interwar period. One aspect of this implementation process was that, in order to install cancer patients within the "radiotherapy factory," British medical officers of health adapted their organizational cultures from being environmentalists to being administrators of medical services. One of the consequences of this change was the accomplishment of a much more reductive approach to cancer compared with a more holistic approach to the disease. (+info)
Teamwork, clinical research, and the development of scientific medicines in interwar Britain: the "Glasgow School" revisited.
(3/19)
This article argues that historians of medicine have, until very recently, misinterpreted the relationship of "science" and "the clinic" in the early twentieth century. It follows recent historiographic developments in focusing on the relationship in practice as exemplified by the development of a specific variety of collaborative clinical research using laboratory methods, ca. 1919-37, in a major British medical school. It suggests that it is such working hybrids that should be studied in order to understand fully the development of scientific medicines in the United Kingdom in this period. In Glasgow, it was the local medical culture's characteristic local subservience to clinical priorities that facilitated, in a particular kind of academic unit, a certain type of hierarchical teamwork between clinicians and laboratory workers; the paper reveals how and why this teamwork became, over time, more of an equal partnership. (+info)
Big and tall soldiers are more likely to survive battle: a possible explanation for the 'returning soldier effect' on the secondary sex ratio.
(4/19)
BACKGROUND: It is widely known that more boys are born during and immediately after wars, but there has not been any ultimate (evolutionary) explanation for this 'returning soldier effect'. Here, I suggest that the higher sex ratios during and immediately after wars might be a byproduct of the fact that taller soldiers are more likely to survive battle and that taller parents are more likely to have sons. METHODS: I analyze a large sample of British Army service records during World War I. RESULTS: Surviving soldiers were on average more than one inch (3.33 cm) taller than fallen soldiers. CONCLUSIONS: Conservative estimates suggest that the one-inch height advantage alone is more than twice as sufficient to account for all the excess boys born in the UK during and after World War I. While it remains unclear why taller soldiers are more likely to survive battle, I predict that the returning soldier effect will not happen in more recent and future wars. (+info)
Enduring beliefs about effects of gassing in war: qualitative study.
(5/19)
OBJECTIVES: To discover the content of enduring beliefs held by first world war veterans about their experience of having been gassed. DESIGN: Collection and thematic analysis of written and reported statements from a sample of veterans about gassing. SUBJECTS: 103 veterans with a war pension. RESULTS: Twelve themes were identified, which were related to individual statements. The systemic nature of chemical weapons played a key part in ideas and beliefs about their capacity to cause enduring harm to health. Unlike shrapnel or a bullet that had a defined physical presence, gas had unseen effects within the body, while its capacity to cause damage was apparent from vesicant effects to skin and eyes. The terror inspired by chemical weapons also served to maintain memories of being gassed, while anti-gas measures were themselves disconcerting or a source of discomfort. CONCLUSIONS: Chronic symptoms and work difficulties maintained beliefs about the potency of chemical weapons. In the period after the war, gas continued to inspire popular revulsion and was associated with a sense of unfairness. (+info)
Chemical warfare and medical response during World War I.
(6/19)