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Post by silverdragon on Nov 29, 2014 9:07:18 GMT
There is an interesting book known as Culpeper's, or Culpepers Complete Herbal, that is an encyclopaedia for all things herbalistic that may or may not have heath benefits.
Its quite old. Centuries old. some of the remedies are many many centuries old....
I have a copy somewhere.....
Either way, there are numerous entries for old herbal remedies that may have still been in use in The Great War....
The National Heath was still quite young back then, and people still relied on old herbal remedies for quite a bit of first aid treatment, it was after all practises that we have been following for centuries.
Culpeper's is not in any way to be taken as a replacement for modern medicine.
But even then, they knew that the bark of a certain Willow tree could be used as pain relief....
It has been refined to modern day Asprin.
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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 29, 2014 11:12:26 GMT
The NHS wasn't born until 1946.
If you mean antibiotics rather than the NHS you would be sort of right, although antibiotics didn't start appearing until the 1920's and were not commercially available until the early 30's. Infection, and how to avoid it, was something that was sort of known for roughly 100 years prior to 1914 but doesn't seem to have become accepted as a standard practice by the medical community until the mid to late 1800's.
We can maybe be a little forgiving of the Royal College being slow to adopt sterilization given that they didn't have anesthetics until around this point. This meant that the primary aim of surgery was speed, so the patient didn't die of shock or bleed to death on the table. The record was, I think, something like 20 seconds to remove a mans leg...Or rather his leg, a testicle and a couple of fingers from one of the assistants.
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Post by mrfatso on Nov 29, 2014 14:23:09 GMT
The NHS wasn't born until 1946. If you mean antibiotics rather than the NHS you would be sort of right, although antibiotics didn't start appearing until the 1920's and were not commercially available until the early 30's. Infection, and how to avoid it, was something that was sort of known for roughly 100 years prior to 1914 but doesn't seem to have become accepted as a standard practice by the medical community until the mid to late 1800's. We can maybe be a little forgiving of the Royal College being slow to adopt sterilization given that they didn't have anesthetics until around this point. This meant that the primary aim of surgery was speed, so the patient didn't die of shock or bleed to death on the table. The record was, I think, something like 20 seconds to remove a mans leg...Or rather his leg, a testicle and a couple of fingers from one of the assistants. I have heard stories some surgeons, trained before the introduction of anesthetics did not like their use when they where operating, as the patients cries of pain gave them clues as to how the operation was progressing. |
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Post by Antigone68104 on Nov 29, 2014 15:23:38 GMT
There is an interesting book known as Culpeper's, or Culpepers Complete Herbal, that is an encyclopaedia for all things herbalistic that may or may not have heath benefits. Its quite old. Centuries old. some of the remedies are many many centuries old.... I have a copy somewhere..... |
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Post by silverdragon on Nov 30, 2014 10:28:18 GMT
In Wales?...
Source wikapedia.
Go Go Gadget Goggle for other bits, too numerous to think of trying to incorporate here.
I suppose we have to start by busting the myth that in year (1) of the NHS, suddenly there was a whole mass of hospitals that had never been before which appeared in the country from majic.... and yes, I am being over dramatic to illustrate the point...
The year (-1) NHS, there was no health service....?
It was a "law" that was created to provide better universal sharing of both care, medicines, information, and funding, to the already well established units, and the creation of new units...
The NHS came together from many different sources of heath care that was provided either by local taxation, charity, "poor law", and many other sources, some paid, some charity, that had been around since the lady with the lump.... or was that a lamp?...
Either way, it was born from the necessity to look after wounded soldiers from Wars, which has history way back before the great war, Crimea, Crusades....
This was spread to immediate families of soldiers getting some charitable heath care, being that their soldiers were the bread winners etc, and eventually became one great agency, because of obvious need.
The NHS is therefore something that grew up from smaller parts?....
Although it wasnt called the national elf service back then, it was something that changed slowly, it wasnt something that began in the year (dot).
The NHS has a strange past that cane be researched until the cows retire, you wont get all of it, because its spread out quite thinly, and there are many sources to investigate.
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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 30, 2014 14:06:47 GMT
1946 for England and Wales, 1947 for Scotland - or at least that was the date the relevent laws were passed that created the NHS. Actually going from words to a working system would have taken a bit longer. Practically speaking the only difference for most local Doctors and Hospitals would have been what forms they had to fill out, and where the money was coming from. It probably made life a LOT easier for smaller surgeries as they no longer had to run around chasing patients for the money they were owed. |
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Post by tacitus on Dec 2, 2014 0:52:26 GMT
Here's one. Supposedly, during the days of trench warfare, the Allies got into the habit of using dummies as decoys to bait snipers. From what I've heard, what people would do is take a fake head, mount it on a stick, and make it look like a particularly foolish soldier who was poking his head up to have a look around; some individuals would place a lit cigarette in its mouth to increase visibility. If the dummy head was hit, the soldiers in the trench would lower it and check the angle from which the bullet came. They would then do some math and call in a fire mission onto the area where they suspected the sniper was. 1. Could a sniper, under period-accurate conditions, confuse a fake head with a real person? 2. Would the method of calculating the angle be plausible as a means of attempting to determine where a sniper was? 3. Would the method work? (If I was a sniper, I'd be crawling away after taking my shot just to avoid retaliatory fire.) Further musing on this particular little idea leads me to wonder if this might not be something they would be interested in. Such trickery would seem right down A&J's alley, being special effects guys and all. If we could find a source or information to indicate how the dummy was made - I'm guessing this was the kind of thing cobbled together in the trenches from what was available - that might be a good start. See 'Sniping in France' by Major H. Hesketh-Prichard, originally published in 1920. MAJ Hesketh-Prichard ran sniper schools on the Western Front for the British Army and engaged in a fair amount of sniping himself. His book is available on line for a very nominal fee. Paper mache heads were produced for various tactical deception purposes by French artists and the Major obtained a supply of these. Some troops even rigged them to 'smoke' cigarettes (a hose ran from the butt of the cigarette in the mouth of the dummy, and down into the trench where a soldier puffed on the hose to smoke the cigarette). Besides being apparently very life-like, I'd bet that at different periods of the sun's movement throughout the day, some conditions of shadow and light would contribute to the illusion. The heads were mounted on sticks which were slotted into boards firmly staked to the ground; the stick would be slid up until the head was above the parapet. Once a dummy head was shot, the stick and head were lowered part way, and a trench periscope was placed in front of the head such that the eyepiece was in front of the entry 'wound' and the top of the periscope was above the parapet. By looking through the hole in the head from back to rear and through the eyepiece, they could then fairly precisely nail down the enemy sniper's hide. Even in trench warfare, elaborately constructed hides were necessary so snipers could observe for extended periods without themselves being seen and shot (hopefully). Sniper hides were built as part of the trenches themselves, forward of the trenches and, if the terrain favored it, behind the front line of trenches. So even on the relatively confined battlefield of the trench environment, there were a lot of places that could be hiding a sniper. Major Hesketh-Prichard records that in trials at the Frist (British) Army Sniper School, they were able to locate 67 snipers out of 71 using this method. His book has an illustration of this method in use. Generally, using artillery to counter snipers was a bad idea, as any artillery fire you initiated was countered by an equal or greater stonk from the enemy, which likely cost you more casualties than the enemy sniper inflicted. The object normally was to eliminate the sniper that was detected by means of the dummy head, by putting your own sniper on him. Besides, artillery was seldom as certain to kill that enemy sniper as your own sniper's shot. Hope this helps. |
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Post by Cybermortis on Dec 2, 2014 1:58:31 GMT
That helps a great deal, thank you it was an interesting read  |
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Post by ponytail61 on Dec 2, 2014 3:52:54 GMT
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Post by tacitus on Dec 2, 2014 23:19:40 GMT
Perfect! Thanks. In rereading some of the passages, he originally bought dummy heads in London but they tended to be "rather theatrical", and found more suitable ones (and free) at the French Camouflage Works in Amiens. |
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Post by Antigone68104 on Jan 9, 2015 14:45:38 GMT
The British army of WWI emphasized rapid-fire marksmanship. One story from the Battle of Mons says that the Germans thought they were facing machine guns because the British fire was so fast and heavy. Thing is, the Germans were facing machine guns -- not as many as they thought, but each division at Mons had 24 Vickers machine guns.
So, the myth to be tested: Would experienced soldiers mistake rifle fire by itself for machine gun fire?
J&A are going to need a lot of help for this one; while they could probably build a rig to fire several rifles at once I'm not sure if any gun range would let them set it up. OTOH, several colleges in California have ROTC units. If college-level is anything like the JROTC battalion at my high school, there will be an elite rifle team in those units. They could also "borrow" the ROTC instructors to be their expert ears. Getting their hands on a couple machine guns ... we may be talking road trip here, unless there's an Army base in California that would be willing to help out.
Set up: head to a rifle range or place out in the middle of nowhere -- not one of the quarries they've visited in the past, the echoes could throw the test off. Mark off/set up a target, line up the shooters. Put the listeners in a safe place, and blindfold them. One round will be the rifle team firing, one round will be the machine guns, and the listeners have to determine which is which.
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Post by the light works on Jan 9, 2015 15:37:27 GMT
The British army of WWI emphasized rapid-fire marksmanship. One story from the Battle of Mons says that the Germans thought they were facing machine guns because the British fire was so fast and heavy. Thing is, the Germans were facing machine guns -- not as many as they thought, but each division at Mons had 24 Vickers machine guns. So, the myth to be tested: Would experienced soldiers mistake rifle fire by itself for machine gun fire? J&A are going to need a lot of help for this one; while they could probably build a rig to fire several rifles at once I'm not sure if any gun range would let them set it up. OTOH, several colleges in California have ROTC units. If college-level is anything like the JROTC battalion at my high school, there will be an elite rifle team in those units. They could also "borrow" the ROTC instructors to be their expert ears. Getting their hands on a couple machine guns ... we may be talking road trip here, unless there's an Army base in California that would be willing to help out. Set up: head to a rifle range or place out in the middle of nowhere -- not one of the quarries they've visited in the past, the echoes could throw the test off. Mark off/set up a target, line up the shooters. Put the listeners in a safe place, and blindfold them. One round will be the rifle team firing, one round will be the machine guns, and the listeners have to determine which is which. I like it - BUT. have Adam and Jamie be the listeners, and give the ROTC rifle team plenty of advance warning to do "sequential fire" drills. (by which I mean if they fire in volleys it will be different, but if they fire one after another, assuming their cadence is good, they can simulate a relatively slow cycling machine gun.0 |
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Post by Cybermortis on Jan 9, 2015 16:21:17 GMT
Observation; Both the Vickers Machine Gun and the Enfield rifle used the British .303 round.
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Post by the light works on Jan 9, 2015 16:24:52 GMT
Observation; Both the Vickers Machine Gun and the Enfield rifle used the British .303 round. yes, and any test would want to use matching ammunition, as well. I believe light machine guns are still available that use common rifle ammunition. |
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Post by Antigone68104 on Jan 10, 2015 0:55:13 GMT
I like it - BUT. have Adam and Jamie be the listeners, and give the ROTC rifle team plenty of advance warning to do "sequential fire" drills. (by which I mean if they fire in volleys it will be different, but if they fire one after another, assuming their cadence is good, they can simulate a relatively slow cycling machine gun.0 Adam and Jamie are experienced shooters, but I don't know if they're experienced enough to give an expert-ear result. But they could listen along with some former-military types, and that would give us a nice range -- IIRC the Imperial German army used a lot of reservists on the front lines, and J&A should be able to tell us what the gunfire sounds like for a reservist-equivalent. Is it about time to split this into its own thread? |
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Post by the light works on Jan 10, 2015 4:52:30 GMT
I like it - BUT. have Adam and Jamie be the listeners, and give the ROTC rifle team plenty of advance warning to do "sequential fire" drills. (by which I mean if they fire in volleys it will be different, but if they fire one after another, assuming their cadence is good, they can simulate a relatively slow cycling machine gun.0 Adam and Jamie are experienced shooters, but I don't know if they're experienced enough to give an expert-ear result. But they could listen along with some former-military types, and that would give us a nice range -- IIRC the Imperial German army used a lot of reservists on the front lines, and J&A should be able to tell us what the gunfire sounds like for a reservist-equivalent. Is it about time to split this into its own thread? see, my thought was that the front line guys wouldn't be "expert ears" |
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Post by silverdragon on Jan 11, 2015 11:58:10 GMT
Aww, hard thunk, just how do you test that.
"Experienced" is a miss-nomer when you have not experienced the sound of a Vickers before?...
Just how would you test this from rapid rifle fire against a machine gun that "no one" has ever heard before, and once you hear it, you will never mistake it again?...
Machine guns were still pretty new... to the people in the front line.
They would not have known beforehand the sound of the enemies fire power.
And once you have heard, its very hard to UN-Hear?...
Yes but they do sound quite different.....
Only after you have been there a while.
Raw recruits not so much?....
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Post by Antigone68104 on Jan 11, 2015 13:51:38 GMT
Machine guns were still pretty new... to the people in the front line. They would not have known beforehand the sound of the enemies fire power. And once you have heard, its very hard to UN-Hear?... I don't know if the Germans would have had the chance to hear a Vickers firing before Mons, but they were familiar with machine guns -- the Maschinengewehr 08 (MG08) went into service in the Imperial German army in 1908, and was based off an 1901 model (MG01), itself based off the 1884 Maxim gun (which the Germans had in their arsenal). |
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Post by the light works on Jan 11, 2015 15:16:52 GMT
my basis for reasoning is as follows:
we assume there is not yet enough experience with guns - which were rapidly being innovated - to be able to listen to the sound of the individual shot and say "ah, nice resonance, slightly clangy finish, I believe that is an Enfield .303. I think a 1938, which was a particularly fine year"
I have seen nothing in WWI films featuring a commanding officer saying "This is the weapon of your enemy. When fired, it makes a very distinctive sound"
weapon recognition was more along the lines of whether you faced riflemen or machine gunners - and you differentiated between the two by volume of fire and whether there was a regular cadence.
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Post by Cybermortis on Jan 11, 2015 19:16:32 GMT
My point about the weapons using the same round was that there would be no visual indication as to if impacts (be they against people or just the ground) came from a rifle or one of the machine guns.
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