PEACE AND RECONCILIATION

How can peace and reconciliation prevail in a world

Peace And Reconciliation

Abstract

This paper is to explore that the world War one produced a host of innovations in medical technology, record-keeping, understanding of diseases - their causes, spread, and treatment, surgery, psychiatric conditions, dentistry and the importance of sanitation. Big improvements in sanitation and cleanliness saw a decrease in disease and spread of infections. In most previous wars the lack of sanitation meant more people would die of disease than fighting. World War One changed this and the majority of these changes were made and implemented on the home front.

Leadership Development 21st Century

Introduction

The First World War caused upheavals in many areas of life, but evoked the development of new technologies and research to assist the war effort. This was especially the case in medicine, where it acted as a giant field trial. A new feature amongst the many problems caused by great and widespread conflict was the medical administration and sanitation of vast armies. Typically the medical inventions and innovation of the war period seemed clever and respectable, but not particularly brilliant. The administrative achievement was, however, truly remarkable. There was a general lack of preparedness (except Germany) for war and following the outbreak of hostilities the medical services of the allied nations were expanded on an unprecedented scale. The United Kingdom drew 11,000 civilian practitioners, France mobilized the whole of the medical profession and the United States expanded the medical services 20 fold, enrolling nearly 30,000 doctors as reserve officers. This had great implications on the home front as many doctors had to leave their home towns to work in large hospitals and accommodation had to be provided for those who were transferred to various locations. The medical advances had a significant effect on the home front.

The improvements made in weapons in World War One resulted in a massive increase in injuries and casualties. This increase presented the need for improvement in medical technologies however many of these were still experimental during World War One. One of these technologies was blood transfusions, but specifically blood banking. Although there have been recorded cases of blood transfusions as early as the 15th century they had to be performed immediately and often failed. It was not until 1916 that the first successful blood transfusion was performed with blood that had been stored for an extended period of time. The discovery of blood storage had a significant effect on the home front it terms of that it created the need for employment. Storage facilities had to be built and doctors had to supervise the processing and storage of the blood. Another impact that it had on the home front was that soldiers who were wounded on the front line were able to be sent home and return to battle quickly due to the supplies of blood and other medical advances.

Prior to World War One there were more fatalities due to illness than there were due to ...