[Health problems of combatants during the First World War]. / Les problèmes de santé des combattants durant la Première Guerre mondiale.

The First World War because of the use of new weapons, injured more than 3 500 000 people (500 000 in the face), more than diseases (tuberculosis, typhoid fever, etc.) or even weather circumstances. The healing of the war wounds through surgery undertook a significant evolution thanks to the use of asepsis and antiseptics. Mortality go down, opening the way to the physical and psychological rehabilitation of those injured by the war.

[A spectacular revolution: evolution of French military health service]. / La révolution spectaculaire du Service de santé aux armées.

After the sanitary disaster caused by the first months of the conflict, the Health service of the French armies undertook a true revolution. By 1918, it had become the most efficient of all the opposing armies. At the end of 1914, through the spacing out of the evacuating hospitals within the zone of the armies, the most efficient teams were placed as close as possible to the front. Injured soldiers were categorized at every step of the chain. Technical progress, especially in war surgery, pushed medicine into the moderne era.

[War casualty triage during the First World War]. / Le triage des blessés pendant la Grande Guerre.

Along with the front hospitals (HOE), the action of sorting out the injured was one of the most important innovations of the Great War. Progressively, it was implemented and codified on each level of the evacuating chain, with variations due to the different phases of the conflict, such as in Verdun or in the Somme. From 1917 onwards, specific sorting centers, managed by experimented soldiers, were set up in the evacuating hospitals.

[French military nurses during the First World War (1914-1918)]. / Les infirmiers militaires français dans la guerre 1914-1918.

In 1914, beingthe heirs of the ambulance soldiers who had been created during the time of the Empire, the military males-nurses were overwhelmed by the armies huge needs in paramedics. Facing both the callings of commandment which demanded the recruitment of soldiers and the necessity--which had been set up as a duty by the health service--to attend the doctors, the military male-nurse gave way, in 1918 to a new comer: the female military nurse.