Medical aspects of the Battle of Waterloo: the battle

Abstract

The Duke of Wellington's polyglot army assembled for the Waterloo campaign was hastily aggregated and the Army Medical Department was somewhat short of staff and not entirely of the calibre of the department serving latterly in the Peninsular campaigns. The casualty rates during the battles of this campaign were high and the regimental and hospital staff struggled with the large number of casualties. Lack of stretcher bearers and transport were significant problems, which were compounded by the high density of the casualties. Three quarters of the surviving wounded rejoined their units.

Charles Bell as an illustrator of military trauma (1809 and 1815)

“…6 Seventeen sheets contain illustrations of 18 patients and their wounds with anatomical precision: eight have wounds to the head or neck, two -to the chest or abdomen, eight -to the limbs. Bell's random sampling is confirmed by statistics: during the Battle of Waterloo, most of the wounds were sustained in the limbs (about 75%), and two-thirds were sustained from smooth-bore, low-power firearms (muskets, carbines, pistols) (Crumplin 2013, Crumplin 2015. Three of Bell's patients sustained wounds from cold steel arms (sabres), nine -from musket balls, one -from grapeshots, and five -from cannon balls.…”