JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
I'm reprinting this rare broadside in the interest of the medical history of WWI. It seems not to be anywhere (I can only find one copy in WorldCat, at the Countway Library at Harvard University) and I'm not finding any references to it, offhand. It is interesting and appealing, a no-nonsense approach to provoking necessary attention to creating and securing artificial limbs for wounded Canadian solders.
Canada of course joined the war effort against Germany on the same day as Great Britain, about two and a half years before the U.S. declared war. In all more than 61,000 Canadian soldiers were killed during the war, as well as 172,000 wounded--the U.S. in contrast lost 126,000 killed and 204,000 wounded. Similar numbers, in a way, except that the U.S. had more than ten times the population, 92 million versus 7.2 mullion in Canada. The 172k wounded coming home in Canada would've been like 2.3 million returning to the U.S. (a number larger than the 2.09 million returning wounded in all of the British Empire). All that said: 230,000 killed and wounded in a population of 7/2 million is considerable.
This broadside discusses the Military Hospital Commission and the Orthopedic Hospital, and how its address (Yonge Street) could be renamed "Crutched Soldiers", and that "was a title of honor, not reproach" and a "spur to bravery". There is a discussion of Canadian legs versus English legs, leg weights, and such. Of high interest for me, though was the discussion of "two kinds of motorist"--one who always stops and gives a ride to a wounded soldier in the vicinity of the hospital, and the other, who doesn't. The writer of the broadside clearly has no use for the later.
The report, in full (it is more legible expanded):
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