Women's Hospital Corps
The Women's Hospital Corps (WHC, Engl . For Women Hospital - Corps ) was a military unit of the British Military Medical Corps (RAMC) during the First World War . It was formed by the amalgamation of British medical women under the medical direction of Louisa Garrett Anderson and Flora Murray .
Medical facilities of the WHC
Garrett Anderson and her partner Murray approached the French embassy in London in August 1914 with the plan to set up another medical facility to care for wounded soldiers in France in addition to the official British military hospital in Versailles . The British military opposed the use of women as military doctors.
Auxiliary hospitals in Paris and Wimereux
The British doctors and nurses of the WHC operated two field hospitals in France from mid-September 1914 to February 1915 , the Hôpital Auxiliaire in the Hôtel Claridge on the Parisian Avenue des Champs-Élysées with around 100 beds and soon afterwards due to the high number of wounded near Boulogne-sur -Mer another at the Château Mauricien in Wimereux .
The Paris hospital received the first wounded on September 16, 1914 and was initially only borne by private donations and by the French Red Cross , the medical standard soon exceeded that of the regional French institutions and was partly with the standard of the US -american hospitals in the city. While they were still on duty, the women were given military uniforms from the British Military Medical Corps. Flora Murray is known to have last held the military rank of senior field doctor. In addition to the British wounded, French soldiers and members of Allied troops were soon being treated. Clinic director of the Paris hospital was a Frenchman, the medical management was incumbent on Garrett Anderson and Murray. The hospital was closed on January 18, 1915, and the staff remaining in Paris were moved to Wimereux.
The hospital in Wimereux was officially opened by the British Medical Corps and was explored by Rosalie Jobson and Majorie Blandy. Shortly thereafter, Garrett Anderson and Murray also moved to Wimereux and took over the medical management of the hospital. The hospital was ready for admission on November 6, 1914. Since considerations were already being made to relocate the WHC's forces to London , it remained much smaller than the Paris hospital.
Endell Street Military Hospital
The WHC's achievement was quickly recognized. As early as February 18, 1915, Garrett Anderson and Murray had the support of Sir Alfred Keogh in his role as Chief Medical Officer and were commissioned by the United Kingdom Department of Defense to build and operate a military hospital in a poor house in the St. Giles Congregation in London's Endell Street , Covent Garden . Keogh's decision was not shared by many members of the British Military Medical Corps, who prophesied that the military hospital would close within six months.
The military hospital, managed by Garrett Anderson and, unusually for the time, exclusively run by women, had a capacity of 573 beds and during its existence from March 22, 1915 to December 1919, cared for around 26,000 patients, including 24,000 war wounded. In total, more than 7,000 operations were performed at Endell Street Military Hospital . The hospital was later torn down, and today there is a residential building in the same place.
Other noteworthy WHC members
In addition to the two medical directors and activists of the Women's Social and Political Union Louisa Garrett Anderson and Flora Murray, the notable members from the very beginning included the doctors Grace Judge, Hazel Cuthbert and Gertrude Gazdar, as well as the doctors Majorie Blandy and, who joined Paris in September 1914 Rosalie Jobson. The nursing staff were Olga Campbell, Mardie Hodgson and another nurse . The nursing staff consisted mainly of auxiliary workers.
Grace Judge
Charlotte Grace Judge (born February 14, 1882 in Wynberg ; † ??) was a British doctor born in South Africa. She was the daughter of the former civil commissioner of Kimberley Edward Arthur Judge and his wife, Alice Elizabeth, born Shepstone, and had six siblings. She moved with her parents to the London borough of Clapham in 1891 and studied in London, where she probably graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in mid-1913.
Hazel Cuthbert
Hazel Haward Chodak-Gregory, née Cuthbert (born July 20, 1886 in London, † January 12, 1952 ), was a British pediatrician .
She was the daughter of the architect Goymore Cuthbert and his wife Marion, née Linford. With the financial support of her uncle, she studied human medicine in London and graduated in 1911 with a bachelor's degree and in 1913 a doctor of medicine. During her assignment in Paris with the WHC, she was also employed as a doctor on the motorized ambulances that rescued the wounded from the combat zone.
In 1916 she married the physician Alexis Chodak-Gregory. The marriage produced a son. After serving in the war, she worked at the Children's Hospital in Birmingham and from 1919 at the Royal Free Hospital in London . This was followed by a job as an assistant doctor at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children and in 1926 the decision to train as a specialist in the field of paediatrics. She was Chair of the Medical Committee and Vice Director of the London School of Medicine for Women. For health reasons she had to retire in 1946.
Rosalie Jobson
Rosalie Jobson (* 1886; † 1963 ) was a British doctor and military doctor born in Scotland . She was the daughter of the later Brigade Doctor W. Jobson. She studied medicine at Oxford University and graduated successfully in 1914 with membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (MRCS) and a licentiate from the Royal College of Physicians (LRCP). She joined the WHC in September 1914 with Majorie Blandy in Paris. With her she explored the military hospital in Wimereux in 1914.
During her field work in Paris, she first met her future husband, the neurologist Sir Gordon Morgan Holmes . She later had three children with him named Kathleen, Rosalie and Elizabeth. In the literature about her husband, Jobson is also mentioned as an international athlete.
Majorie Blandy
Majorie Blandy (* 1887 ; † 1937 ) was a British doctor. She was the first female medical registrar at London's National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Queen Square . She joined the WHC in Paris with Rosalie Jobson in September and explored the hospital in Wimereux with her in 1914.
In 1922 she married the Irish neurologist James Purdon Martin . The marriage was initially kept secret, as married women had to give up their professional activities at that time.
Olga Campbell
Olga Byatt, née Campbell (* 1891 , † 1943 ) was a British nurse. She met Flora Murray through the marriage of her aunt Evelyn to Flora Murray's brother William know and was recruited by her on September 14, 1914 for the service in the WHC. In France, she led the care work together with Mardie Hodgson and was officially appointed quartermaster in Wimereux .
In 1924 she married Horace Archer Byatt , the then governor of Trinidad and Tobago . From the marriage the common sons named Hugh, Robin and David emerged.
literature
- Flora Murray: Women as Army Surgeons: being the history of the Women's Hospital Corps in Paris, Wimereux and Endell Street, Sep 1914-Oct 1919 , Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1920.
- Jennian F. Geddes: Deeds and Words in the Suffrage Military Hospital in Endell Street , in Medical History 51 (1), January 2007, pp. 79–98, PMC 1712367 (free full text)
- Jennian F. Geddes: Artistic integrity and feminist spin: a spat at the Endell Street Military Hospital , in The Burlington Magazine No. 147, 2005, pp. 617-618.
- Jennian F. Geddes: The Women's Hospital Corps: forgotten surgeons of the First World War , in the Journal of Medical Biography , Ed. 14 No. 2, 2006, pp. 109-117. ISSN 0967-7720
- Letters from Louisa Garrett Anderson to her mother Elizabeth Garrett Anderson with reports from the first days of the mission, Hôpital Auxiliaire, Hôtel Claridge, Paris, September to October 1914.
- Vrouwen in de Heelkunde (Dutch).
- Mary Ann Elston: Run by Women, (mainly) for Women: Medical Women's Hospitals in Britain, 1866-1948
Individual evidence
- ^ Memorial plaque to the Endell Street Military Hospital .
- ^ Francis Dodd: A hospital in which women operate on men (English), image description.
- ↑ Family tree entry, RootsWeb.
- ↑ South African Medical Report ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), July 12, 1913, p. 264 (page 2 of the document lower left).
- ↑ Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie, Joy Dorothy Harvey: Hazel Haward Chodak-Gregory (English), in The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science , 2000, p. 254. ISBN 978-0-415-92039-1
- ↑ Frank Clifford Rose: Sir Gordon Holmes (1876-1965) (English), in Twentieth Century Neurology , p. 89.
- ↑ from the biography of James Purdon Martin (English), whonamedit.com.
- ↑ Olga Byatt (née Campbell) and the Endell Street Hospital (English), November 10, 2008.
