Shock has been called the great mystery of the war. It followed severe wounds, especially those of the abdomen and chest, but frequently it occurred in men only slightly wounded. And it was horribly fatal.
Here was a case: A splendid young man of twenty-three was brought into an advanced dressing station with a foot shot off. Not a fatal wound in ordinary circumstances. But this man who, an hour ago, had been in perfect health, now lay white as marble, cold and almost pulseless. The wounded stump did not even bleed. In a short time he was dead. He was shocked to death.
The best physicians in the world have been working for nearly four years to find out why he, and others, died like that. They were completely baffled at first, but they kept steadily on. They worked in front-line trenches and even on the battle-field trying to understand wound shock.
They undertook extensive and intensive laboratory work to discover the blood changes that took place in men suffering from the strange malady. To a great extent their work has been successful, and the work is triumphantly going on.
The medical research department of the American Red Cross is now conducting a series of experiments, and it might as well be admitted at the outset that these experiments, which are to save men’s lives in untold numbers, involve destroying some animal life. For this reason the anti-vivisectionists, and that small section of the press which supports their views, are at the present time hotly assailing the research department of the Red Cross.
Says one statement of the opposition: “No expensively equipped laboratory is needed to seek out wounded soldiers on the battle-fields and give them aid and comfort in the hospitals; and it will cause deep sorrow among innumerable contributors to know that the Red Cross is going beyond the activities of its charter rights and is supporting a cruel and disputed form of medical experimentation.”
Putting aside for the moment all except the first sentence of this statement, “No expensively equipped laboratory is needed to seek out wounded soldiers on the battle-fields and give them aid and comfort in the hospitals,” the answer is that without the laboratory the hospitals would be back in the days when gunshot wounds were treated by having hot oil poured into them, and when the only way of dealing with shattered limbs was amputation.
This war, particularly, has developed maladies and wound complications undreamed of before. Shock is not exactly new. In civilian hospitals it occurs after every operation. But the wound shock of this war is new, and the doctors had to study it as a new manifestation.
Out of many cases take the following: A soldier member of a working party, laying telephone wires one wet and muddy night, was hit by the explosion of a shell. He was severely wounded, suffering a compound fracture of one arm and some bad muscle lacerations. His comrades picked him up and hurried him to the nearest dressing station, but by the time he got there his wounds looked like dead flesh. There was no bleeding and the man’s pulse was still.
He was conscious and mentally bright. “Hello, fellows,” he called out to those who worked over him, and to the surgeon he said confidently: “I’ve got a blighty, haven’t I?” Meaning a rest in a home hospital.