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Britain’s first purpose-built military hospital opened in 1863. Grand in scale, the Royal Victoria Hospital on the waterfront at Netley in Hampshire had its own railway station and one thousand beds. A corridor stretched for a quarter of a mile from one end of the hospital to the other.

But in World War One the wards overflowed with wounded soldiers. As early as 1914, the 200-acre grounds were beginning to fill up with huts to treat vast numbers of casualties. This extension was managed by the Red Cross.

The ferocity of the fighting brought its own medical challenges. Netley doctors amputated limbs and refined blood transfusions. Mustard gas victims were treated in special saline baths. A contemporary film, ‘War Neuroses’, depicts attempts to ‘cure’ shell shock, although some of the footage has been shown to be faked.

After a serious fire, most of the hospital was demolished in 1966.

Location: Royal Victoria Country Park, Netley, Southampton, Hampshire SO31 5DQ
Photograph of the west wing at Netley Hospital courtesy of the Wellcome Library, London
Presented by Marcus White

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