Commentary on "wounded treated at the Royal Naval Hospital, Plymouth". 1915.

The work of this hospital only began to assume a special character with the arrival, on the 15th October, of a convoy of 673 sick and wounded Belgian officers and men. Among the cases were upwards of 250 suffering from various medical affections, more or less directly connected with the prolonged periods of exposure and fatigue to which the men had been subjected. Thus not less than 133 cases were included under such headings as rheumatism, lumbago and sciatica, whilst about 50 were suffering from bronchitis and other affections of the lungs. A further group of about 156 included a variety of surgical affections and injuries, other than those of gunshot wounds; among these, contusions and sprains, fractures and ordinary wounds preponderated. In the case of the wounded the injuries were in many cases of several weeks’ duration.