Wounds and disease in the war

In 1916 the surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch achieved an important breakthrough in arm prostheses. The Sauerbruch arm, as it was called, allowed the hand to be moved by the upper arm muscle. The demands made of medicine by the war resulted in the development of a variety of medical procedures, not only in prosthetics, but also in blood transfusion, plastic surgery and research into poisonous gases and epidemics. The new weapon techniques produced novel and challenging types of injuries and diseases. There were many soldiers with wounds and infections that took on epidemic proportions and soon placed an enormous burden on the medical supply system.