Wellcome Collection: War and Medicine
Temporary Show Highlights How Warfare Leads to Advances in Medicine
Nov 27, 2008
The year 2008 has been a bumper year for war-related exhibitions. War and Medicine, the Wellcome Collection's sixth temporary show, brings the year to a close with a fascinating and thought-provoking presentation. The show explores how warfare has fuelled the need for medical advances.
The exhibition falls into three main sections:
The Organisation of War
This installation starts with the Crimean War and follows through to the modern day. The show explores Florence Nightingale's contribution during the Crimean War. She found ways of increasing political awareness of the importance to the military of medical progress and efficiency.
The place of women in later wars is examined through photographs and posters. The Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) supplied trained volunteers to support the war effort. 90,000 women signed up as cooks, cleaners, ambulance drivers and nurses.
The exhibition shows how organisational failure can leave an army without support, food, clothing, accommodation or medical care. Gilbert Rogers' painting, Stretcher Bearers of the Royal Army Medical Corps (1919) shows bearers recovering the injured during World War I. In 2007 war artist David Cotterrell spent three weeks in Afghanistan capturing the drama of the front line. His photograph, Ambulance, shows how the injured are recovered now.
The Body
Several themes are discussed in this part of the exhibition including the development of First Aid. On display is the Esmarch Bandage, a triangular dressing designed by Professor Friedrich von Esmarch, Surgeon-General to the German army during the Franco-German War (1870-1871). Thirty-two ways to use the dressing are illustrated on the bandage.
The show highlights the affects of war with stark images of starvation and disease caused by conflict. It continues by explaining life-saving medical advances such as blood transfusions, plastic surgery, antibiotics and orthopaedics.
The display discusses the differences between the war injured of World War I and World War II. During World War I the injured were mainly recruits, but World War II involved civilians on the Home Front.
Visitors are brought face to face with the unpleasant fact that the sheer numbers of war injured, and the new types of injury they suffer, forces medicine to advance. Ironically, the need to advance quickly may be due to the need to return soldiers to the front line as soon as possible.
The Mind - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
This part of the exhibition examines the affects of war on the mind. During World War I there were at least 80,000 cases of "shell shock". Many solders were so incapacitated that they were unable to fight. Some were accused of desertion or cowardice, punishable by death. More than 300 British soldiers were executed. The condition now has an official name: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the executed have been officially pardoned.
The Watch Man
To accompany War and Medicine an installation by Shona Illingworth, known for her powerful and evocative video and sound installations, features a multimedia display that examines trauma memory. The Watch Man looks at a boy of 19 who witnessed some of the worst events of World War II. He became a watch maker and is now 80 years old. How has he coped with those traumatic memories? (This display will be shown from 16 December-12 January 2009.)
Public Events
There will be a number of public events associated with War and Medicine including tours, discussions and week-end seminars. A late-night film festival will feature films from the Wellcome Library’s collection plus contemporary animations and real-life accounts.
War and Medicine - the Publication
The Wellcome Collection, together with Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden and Black Dog Publishing, has published a catalogue/history book entitled War and Medicine.
War and Medicine will be on show until 15 February 2009. Full details are available from the Wellcome Collection.
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