Medicine during world war iI
Today, the level of medical care in World War II tends to be thought of as outdated. While it is certainly true that many of the practices in the war have not been used for many years, medicine in World War II was a massive step forward for the time. In World War I, only “four out of every one hundred wounded men could expect to survive,” although this was partly because of the nature of trench warfare in addition to poor medicine (White). Just twenty years later in the next world war, however, “the rate improved to fifty out of one hundred” (White). Many advances in medicine, most notably the mass production of antibiotics, led to this decrease of mortality rates.
Other medical advances were developed during World War II as well. Medics on the battlefield carried with them blood plasma, the fluid in which red and white blood cells are suspended, which was used in place of blood transfusion. Since blood decomposes in less than a week, it cannot be used for transfusion on a mass scale; blood plasma separated from blood cells, on the other hand, is stable enough to survive the trip overseas. Dr. Charles Drew made this discovery and was in charge of the program to collect and ship plasma to the front lines, where it was used to prevent death by bleeding.
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Sulfanilamide was among the first antibiotics used in the world. It had been used since its discovery in 1936 to stop the spread of infectious disease. In one particular meningitis outbreak among French soldiers in Nigeria, “there was an 11% mortality rate while sulfanilamide was available,” but “after the supply was exhausted, mortality climbed to 75%” (Steinert). Sulfanilamide was delivered in powder and tablet forms and was in every soldier’s first aid kit. Sulfanilamide (along with its related group of antibiotics, sulfonamides) was more or less phased out to make way for penicillin midway through the war. Both, however, were indispensable. Penicillin’s production and worldwide availability might not have been as swift if it were not for its urgent need during World War II. The pharmaceutical company Pfizer took a huge financial risk in developing a new method of its production, deep-tank fermentation, which paid off enormously and propelled Pfizer to become the leading producer of penicillin for the Allies. The mass production of this “wonder drug” helped to stop the spread of infectious disease, and saved countless millions of lives.
The opiate morphine was first used during World War II. The pharmaceutical company Squibb was to morphine as Pfizer was to penicillin. They developed a syrette, which looked like a toothpaste tube with a needle on the end, to deliver a fixed amount of the painkiller on the battlefield. This would allow soldiers to not feel the severe pain as they were transported to a treatment center.
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Special thanks to David Steinert's World War II Combat Medic website for rare pictures of the original medical equipment.