1915

Cushing and volunteer unit from Harvard (“First Harvard Unit”) journey to Paris to the Ambulance Americaine (American Military Hospital) , and begins his war journal (Thomson, 186ff.). Harvard dentist Varaztad Kazanjian was chief dental officer among the three dentists part of the unit; he formed a 100-bed jaw unit at General Hospital No. 22 (then No. 20) and pioneered reconstructive jaw surgery (V. Kazanjian, 7ff.). Kazanjian, who was asked to stay on after the Harvard Unit returned to U.S. in Sept 1915, the “miracle man of the Western front,” treated over 3000 patients with wiring, bone grafting, etc. (Chambers & Ray, 474). Back to England in 1917, where Cushing’s unit served with British Exped. Force and where, during winter of 1917-18, he operated 16-18 hours a day (Thomson, 194-95). Crile and a unit from Lakeside Hospital (Cleveland) were the first American unit to staff Ambulance Americaine in Jan, 1915. (Crile, I, 247-55). Fleming, working out of Almroth Wright’s unit of bacteriologists attached to a British Army Hospital in Boulogne, published two papers in The Lancet – the first comprehensive study of the bacteriology of wound infections, concluding that antiseptics were not only useless but harmful in the treatment of infected wounds: they did not reach wounds caused by shrapnel and killed white blood cells (Macfarlane, 84-88).