Spotlight Saturday: Medicine and the Army

From leeches to battlefield ambulances, discover how Army medicine has developed from the Civil War to the present day.

On arrival, collect a casualty card to find out your illness or injury. Then discover how you would have been treated in different eras.

Don't miss the Casualties Union who will be on hand to provide fake battle wounds.

English Civil War

11am - 5pm

Get up close with real-life leeches and discover how they were used to treat soldiers on the bloody battlefields of the English Civil War.

Crimean War

11am - 5pm

Get hands on with objects from the Crimean War and find out more about the work of Florence Nightingale. 

World Wars

11am - 5pm

Speak to a First World War military doctor and find out how he dealt with casualties on the Western Front.

11am, 12.30pm, 3pm

Meet a Second World War nurse and hear her experiences of D-Day and beyond.

Present day

11am - 5pm

Climb aboard a battlefield ambulance and speak to serving soldiers from 256 City of London Field Hospital about their work and equipment. You can even meet a military working dog and their handler. 

Then, speak to soldiers from 221 Explosive Ordnance Disposal & Search Field Squadron. They will demonstrate their important roles in bomb disposal, including first-response treatment of casualties. 

Talks

2pm - 3pm

Renowned military historian Gareth Glover talks about Napoleonic surgery, illustrating his talk with hospital sketches and reports on the wounded of Waterloo.

3pm - 3.45pm

Join Colonel Ashleigh Boreham, Commanding Officer of the 256 (City of London) Field Hospital and Trustee of the Museum for Military Medicine, for a presentation on the organisation of the Army Medical Services within a historical context to present day.

Family workshops

11am - 1pm, 2pm - 4pm

Discover how the Army has been a source of medical innovations and invent your own life-saving device in our family-friendly workshop.