Medical paraphernalia tells the stories of World War 1

Medical artefacts and paraphernalia from the First World War – including a travelling dentistry chair, original medicine bottles and soldier cartoons – are on display at the University of Melbourne’s Medical History Museum.
Museum Curator Jacky Healy says many of the key medical innovations and stories forged on World War 1 battlefields are highlighted in the exhibition, Compassion and Courage: Australian Doctors and Dentists in the Great War.
“War has always been a catalyst for change in the fields of medicine and dentistry,” Dr Healy says.
“World War 1 brought with it new types of military conflict never known before, from machine gun and poisonous gas attacks to trench warfare.
“This created new medical challenges, including infectious diseases, treatment of wounds, psychological trauma and hygiene.
“One of the interesting stories told by the exhibition is the often overlooked but incredibly important role of dentists,” Dr Healy says.
In the first three months of the Gallipoli campaign over 600 soldiers were evacuated, to the base hospitals in Egypt to get dental treatment.
To stem this inefficient system and deal with these often serious health problems, there was a call for dentally trained soldiers to step forward to fill this vacuum. Three Gallipoli soldiers volunteered and created the Australian Army’s first dental unit.
“We know of a dental officer being struck in the leg by Turkish shrapnel while extracting a tooth from a fellow soldier,” Dr Healy says.
The dental team at Gallipoli performed 180 fillings, 327 extractions and 60 denture repairs from November until the December evacuation. There were 188 army dental units by the end of the war.
Alumni from the University of Melbourne were among those who went to war and suffered numerous casualties as soldiers and medical professionals. The exhibition pays homage to these alumni and the shared history of our partner organisations.
The first director appointed to the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Gordon Clunes Mathieson, was killed at Gallipoli before he was able to take up his post, and his story is represented in the exhibition.
The Victorian Medical Insurance Agency Limited is the exhibition sponsor.
The exhibition showcases, among other things:
A sketch of Captain Doctor Arthur Poole Lawrence dressed as a digger wearing a slouch hat. Dr Poole was awarded a Military Cross for treating the wounded under fire.
One of over one-and-a-half million medallions – known as the death penny medallions – that were distributed in the British Empire to bereaved families. The medallion was presented to the family of Melville Rule Hughes, WW1 surgeon.
Artefacts from field hospitals where pathology laboratories led by Charles Martin were established to deal with the infectious diseases that killed as many soldiers as war wounds.
Watercolour paintings of war wounds by Darryl Lindsay which portray the work of surgeons and dentists who pioneered facial reconstruction at the Queen’s Hospital Sidcup in London.
The exhibition is on show in the Medical History Museum until 16 April 2016.
www.museum.medicine.unimelb.edu.au
Watch a video of Curator Dr Jacky Healy talking about the exhibition at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Okzo_-v3Q