They didn’t have penicillin at that time.

Heroes Remember

They didn’t have penicillin at that time.

Transcript

On her first trip, she left Halifax, she went down to Algiers. And she picked up patients in Algiers and brought them up to England, and left them there. And then, picked up a load there and brought them home. And the boys seen some pretty rough stuff at that time. But by the time I went on, the war was practically over, so the patients were in pretty good shape. They lost several patients that died at sea ‘cause they were in bad shape, bringing them home. But in my day, it was - talking to some of the boys that was on before, I was … they said we had it easy like, in a way, to what ... patients, they were trying to get them out of England as fast as they could, to clear the hospitals. And those ones they brought up from - don’t know if this is good for this tape or not one of the boys said they were ... imagine the boys coming, never worked around a hospital, like myself, and went on down to Naples and they brought these patients on. He said he lifted up this bandage, maggots in there crawling around. He said he pretty near turned sick. The fellow said, “Oh, that’s alright,” he said, “nothing wrong with them. So-and-so in that bed’s got some of my maggots, and the other fellow over here’s got some of my maggots.” And that’s no joke! They didn’t have penicillin at that time and so on, and maggots would only eat dead flesh, and that’s all they had to ... if you got too many in the wound, they’d take them out, but they actually was, that’s what they ... eating up the dead flesh. It was kind of scary. I didn’t get into that. Seeing that was that was before my time, before I went on, see.

Description

Mr. Clark compares wounds he saw to more severe ones earlier in the war. He describes nature’s antibiotic - maggots.

Charles Howard Clark

Charles Howard Clark was born in Chelton, Prince Edward Island on November 16, 1924. His father worked as a fisherman, carpenter and butcher during the Depression. Mr. Clark indicates that although times were tough, his community shared its resources and no one went hungry. He attended a one room school. Although he was able to enlist, he, like many local youth, had to stay on the farm as the production of food was vital to the war effort. Mr. Clark’s attempts to enlist in 1943 were at first unsuccessful; he was turned down by both the navy and air force, but was finally accepted into the infantry. However, his stay there was short due to a childhood hip injury, which made marching difficult. He then trained as a stretcher bearer, before finally joining the hospital ship ‘Lady Nelson’ as a nurse-orderly. Aboard this vessel, Mr. Clark made seventeen transatlantic voyages, offering medical care of various types to the wounded who were being returned to Canada. He witnessed the Halifax riots and feels much of the blame placed on the military was unwarranted.

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