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Les Gueules casses: http://www.bium.univ-paris5.fr/1418/debut.htm (Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de mèdecine et d'Odontologie, Paris, France)
The French-language virtual exhibition Les Gueules cassées is a harrowing account of the "itinerary of suffering" endured by the many thousands of French WWI veterans with severe facial injuries. These colloquially known "broken faces" have become emblematic of the violence of modern, mechanized warfare and its uniquely dehumanizing effects. As a journalist for the New York Times put it, "There is no other injury in the war in Europe which is as horrible and as touching as facial injury." Never before had the medical services or the public encountered such devastating combat injuries. Inundated field hospitals, the bacteria-rich soil of the Western Front, and the absence of antibiotics guaranteed high rates of infection. Trench warfare exposed the face to shrapnel and shell fragments, while steel helmets (introduced in Summer 1915) decreased the risk of mortality and brain injury. Shot in the head from the side, a soldier might survive but lose much of his face. Developments in military technology had specific corporeal effects, like the large entry wounds-well represented on this Web site-caused by modern artillery. Fired at close range and with relatively low muzzle...