In German Hands; The Diary of a Severely Wounded Prisioner

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 Excerpt: ... be quite useless to complain. These same Sisters do the dressings in the wards. The method is always the same: the wound is washed with benzine, gauze is applied, then cotton-wool, and over this a linen bandage. They also give subcutaneous injections of opium or morphia, and the use they make of this last drug without the doctor's supervision seems to me excessive. Some of the wounded in my ward have already had over no injections, one every evening, and very often another at midnight. The doctors I have already mentioned complete the staff and control it. They dress the wounds of the more severely injured patients. Their work is done in a well-lighted room, provided with all necessary utensils, and each "station" has one of its own. The methods are the same as those of the Sisters: benzine and oxygenized water; never any tincture of iodine, though they have this. Sterilized gauze or wet dressings are applied, the latter very rarely. When the wound closes, they dress it with a reddish ointment the name of which I do not know, or with a yellowish cream contained in tubes, which they call Borsalb (boracic ointment). I may note that all the non-amputated wounded legs look very horrible. The bones have crossed, causing a shortening of several centimetres. If we add to these the daily experiments tried by the doctors, grafting of flesh or sutures of nerves--never successful indeed, our doctors being young and inexperienced--we shall have duly noted all the attentions here bestowed on the wounded prisoners. But I must not forget to describe anew process, probably unknown to our French doctors. Say your leg is too short and there is reason to fear contraction, shrinkage of the nerves. In such a case, our young doctors--I saw this done twice myself under...