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A Medical View of the Gallipoli Adventure.
141 of the blood-vessels with fluid. from Colonel FREMANTLE’S description that heroism of the highest order was displayed by our young troops at Suvla Bay, but. it is certain that thirst played a big part in the failure to snatch an immediate victory. How the lack of water was occasioned we need not stay to inquire, except to emphasise the fact that adequate thought had been given beforehand to its provision, for from Egypt, and even from distant India, receptacles of all kinds to hold 100,000 gallons, had been requisitioned, including " petrol tins, milk cans, camel tanks, water-bags, and pakhals," and that it was the distribution of the supply which was at fault. Continued strain ensued upon the initial failure to make good a surprise attack, and was another contributing cause, through its medical results, to What havoc it played the eventual withdrawal. with the regimental medical officers is told by Colonel FREMANTLE. They by their habits and have been expected to bear it better training might than others, but one-third of their number succumbed within a day or two. But the advance in darkness under fire, through unknown, roadless, broken country, rock, and scrub, doubtless reacted specially on the less-trained man, and contributed towards the inertia which is pointedly mentioned by Sir IAN HAMILTON. Where, in spite of the same
adequate filling It
THE LANCET. LONDON: SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1916.
A Medical View of the Adventure. THE
Gallipoli
story of Anzac and Suvla will live in history
as a failure more heroic than many successes, one which seizes on the imagination in the same degree as the Athenian expedition to Syracuse-which also failed. The Prime Minister has described the necessary evacuation of Gallipoli by our troops as one of the most poignant disappointments of his life, and the keen edge of regret is to be read in every line of Sir IAN HAMILTON’S dispatch. Where success depended as in this case on the smooth working of hundreds and thousands of separate plans and arrangements, it is impossible for the acutest analyst to select any one or more as the sole cause of failure, or at all events to command universal assent in so doing. The ultimate units of avast movement like that planned for the occupation of the Turkish peninsula are the individual men and mules, each with an organism of infinite complexity and subject to varied and often conflicting influences. These units cannot be regarded as the molecules in a chemical reaction the result of which can be confidently foretold. Sir IAN HAMILTON suggests in his dispatch some of the causes of the failure in Gallipoli, and it may be possible for the medical man to glean some further insight into certain con. tributing factors from Lieutenant-Colonel F. E. FREMANTLE’S account of the work of a regimental medical officer which we publish in another column. Thirst has been freely mentioned as one of these " contributing factors. Sir IAN HAMILTON calls it a sensation unknown to the dwellers in cool, wellwatered England," and describes how " at Anzac, when mules with water pakhals arrived at the front, the men would rush up to them in swarms, just to lick the moisture that had exuded through the canvas bags." Colonel FREMANTLE speaks from his personal experience and shows us the untried soldier, straight from on board ship, landed in Suvla Bay under almost tropical heat upon an allowance of a pint of water in 24 hours, and this not always available. The hardened veteran of Helles and Anzac would have suffered under these circumstances, but we know well how training raises the ability to bear thirst and to do with a minimum of fluid. All medical men, and also all competent commanders of soldiers, know that courage and endurance, which to many appear as
purely psychical attributes, the
keeping
up
may
depend largely on by the
of the blood pressure
is
easy
to
see
physical exhaustion, the troops persisted in advancing the result was tragic indeed, as in the case of the colonel who, with 16 officers and 250 men, " still kept pushing on," and was lost to sight and sound in the forest, never to return. Doubtless the medical lessons of the great failure, that was nearly a success, are as well worth further study as the strategic lessons. Some of these medical lessons lie upon the surface, many are possible to guess at, and others are clearly The indicated in Colonel FREMANTLE’S letter. essential message of that letter seems to us to be the need for attention to small points of detail. The critical period of an acute illness may sometimes be safely passed by minute attention to local and even seemingly trivial details. Attention to them alone will not save the patient if the main scheme of treatment be faulty or the bodily force insufficient to deal with the disease. As in civilian, so in military practice: granted good powers and wise guidance, the care of detail will prevent needless failure to surmount the crisis of an illness or of a battle.
Industrial
Fatigue.
SOME of the most interesting of the medical questions that the present war has brought into prominence are connected with the circumstances of industrial fatigue. Not long ago physiologists confined their studies on fatigue largely to the manifestations in the excised bloodless muscles of a frog. But with the advent of MOSSO’S ergograph this was altered. The phenomena
adequate filling It
THE LANCET. LONDON: SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1916.
A Medical View of the Adventure. THE
Gallipoli
story of Anzac and Suvla will live in history
as a failure more heroic than many successes, one which seizes on the imagination in the same degree as the Athenian expedition to Syracuse-which also failed. The Prime Minister has described the necessary evacuation of Gallipoli by our troops as one of the most poignant disappointments of his life, and the keen edge of regret is to be read in every line of Sir IAN HAMILTON’S dispatch. Where success depended as in this case on the smooth working of hundreds and thousands of separate plans and arrangements, it is impossible for the acutest analyst to select any one or more as the sole cause of failure, or at all events to command universal assent in so doing. The ultimate units of avast movement like that planned for the occupation of the Turkish peninsula are the individual men and mules, each with an organism of infinite complexity and subject to varied and often conflicting influences. These units cannot be regarded as the molecules in a chemical reaction the result of which can be confidently foretold. Sir IAN HAMILTON suggests in his dispatch some of the causes of the failure in Gallipoli, and it may be possible for the medical man to glean some further insight into certain con. tributing factors from Lieutenant-Colonel F. E. FREMANTLE’S account of the work of a regimental medical officer which we publish in another column. Thirst has been freely mentioned as one of these " contributing factors. Sir IAN HAMILTON calls it a sensation unknown to the dwellers in cool, wellwatered England," and describes how " at Anzac, when mules with water pakhals arrived at the front, the men would rush up to them in swarms, just to lick the moisture that had exuded through the canvas bags." Colonel FREMANTLE speaks from his personal experience and shows us the untried soldier, straight from on board ship, landed in Suvla Bay under almost tropical heat upon an allowance of a pint of water in 24 hours, and this not always available. The hardened veteran of Helles and Anzac would have suffered under these circumstances, but we know well how training raises the ability to bear thirst and to do with a minimum of fluid. All medical men, and also all competent commanders of soldiers, know that courage and endurance, which to many appear as
purely psychical attributes, the
keeping
up
may
depend largely on by the
of the blood pressure
is
easy
to
see
physical exhaustion, the troops persisted in advancing the result was tragic indeed, as in the case of the colonel who, with 16 officers and 250 men, " still kept pushing on," and was lost to sight and sound in the forest, never to return. Doubtless the medical lessons of the great failure, that was nearly a success, are as well worth further study as the strategic lessons. Some of these medical lessons lie upon the surface, many are possible to guess at, and others are clearly The indicated in Colonel FREMANTLE’S letter. essential message of that letter seems to us to be the need for attention to small points of detail. The critical period of an acute illness may sometimes be safely passed by minute attention to local and even seemingly trivial details. Attention to them alone will not save the patient if the main scheme of treatment be faulty or the bodily force insufficient to deal with the disease. As in civilian, so in military practice: granted good powers and wise guidance, the care of detail will prevent needless failure to surmount the crisis of an illness or of a battle.
Industrial
Fatigue.
SOME of the most interesting of the medical questions that the present war has brought into prominence are connected with the circumstances of industrial fatigue. Not long ago physiologists confined their studies on fatigue largely to the manifestations in the excised bloodless muscles of a frog. But with the advent of MOSSO’S ergograph this was altered. The phenomena