GCSE > History > CCEA > GCSE History: Medicine and Health in Britain (1000-Present) Topic Summaries > Modern medicine > Innovations from WWI
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  • Blood transfusions: Karl Landsteiner’s discovery of blood groups helped doctors realise that a transfusion only worked when the blood was matched. However, it was difficult to store blood for long. In 1914, Albert Hustein found that storing blood with sodium made it last longer, enabling it to be transported to battlefields. The national blood transfusion service opened in 1938. This was supported by large blood banks that took donations from the public.
  • X-rays: first invented by Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895, these allowed doctors to view inside the body and locate bullets or shrapnel. Early machines were large, slow (90 minutes per x-ray), and gave off high radiation, so smaller mobile x-ray machines were developed for use on the battlefield.
  • Plastic surgery: Harold Gillies set up a skin graft clinic for soldiers with severe facial injuries. Gillies and his men treated over 5000 soldiers by 1921. Later, in WWII, Archibald McIndoe (a cousin of Harold Gillies) began using penicillin to prevent infection during plastic surgeries.
  • Treatment of infections: through a lot of trial and error, surgeons found that cutting away infected flesh (debridement) and soaking it in saline solution was the best prevention from infection spreading. The Carrel-Dakin method (1917) used sterilised salt solution to clean wounds, as carbolic acid was ineffective against gas gangrene.
  • Amputation: by 1918, 240,000 men had lost limbs, so surgeons were proficient in this procedure and utilised new methods of sterilisation and antiseptic techniques to reduce the risk of infections or complications.
  • Leg splints: the Thomas splint or army leg splint was developed during WWI to treat broken legs by stabilising and elevating them to help them heal and reduce the need for amputation. Robert Jones taught medics how to use it in 1915, and survival rates for leg injuries increased from 20% to 82%. Improved versions of these leg splints are still used today.

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