He formulated three objectives: firstly, to preserve life, then, to preserve the injured body part and its functionality, and, finally, to mobilise the rest of the body. Between August 1914 and January 1916, he treated 30,000 patients, which meant he acquired a wealth of experience far beyond what would be possible in a normal hospital during peacetime. Böhler criticised the poor treatment of broken bones and injuries to the joints and introduced a system which dealt with the injuries according to their type: breaks to the upper arm, breaks to the lower arm, thigh fractures, and broken hips – each type of injury was treated in a separate room. Shortly afterwards, he was appointed to run the military hospital for minor injuries in Bozen/Bolzano, which at that time had 240 beds. Even here, he divided the injured according to the type of injury, whether to the thorax, the abdomen, or the extremities, in order to be able to offer better and more specific treatment. He then moved to a military hospital in Linz, where he garnered his first experience of dealing with the wounded. After the outbreak of war he became a military doctor in Neumarkt/Egna (now South Tyrol), where he was responsible for examining newly arrived soldiers. In 1914, while travelling to an international surgeons’ congress in New York, the budding young doctor first encountered new methods for treating broken bones at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester (Minnesota). The most prominent example of scientific progress made in the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the First World War came from Lorenz Böhler (1885-1973), who later became a trauma surgeon. Lorenz Böhler: Trauma Surgeon in Wartime ↑

For the majority, the war was extremely burdensome many had to pursue their careers abroad after the war and no small number lost their lives on the battlefield. However, very few of them benefited from the war. These are just a few examples of successful scientists who continued their work in the difficult conditions imposed by the First World War. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in 1923. The chemist Fritz Pregl (1869-1930), who had been a professor at the Institute of Applied Medical Chemistry of Graz University since 1913, was a member of the “ Wissenschaftliche Beratungsstelle für den Gaskampf” (Scientific Advisory Board for Gas Warfare), but after the war worked for soldiers returning home who found themselves in need. After the war he left Austria and worked in Germany, Switzerland, England, and Ireland. The quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961), who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933, was an artillery officer. He returned to Vienna only briefly, emigrating to Sweden in 1917. He was released from captivity as a Russian prisoner of war in 1916 in order to receive the Nobel Prize. The neurobiologist Robert Bárány (1876-1936) – the first Austrian to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1914 – treated patients with head injuries at the front and was able to make use of this for his research on the inner ear. These include the physician Julius Wagner-Jauregg (1857-1940), who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1917, the neurologist Otto Loewi (1873-1961), who was awarded the same prize in 1936, and the scientist who discovered cosmic radiation, Victor Franz Hess (1883-1964), who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936. Although scientists were also feeling the effects of difficult living conditions, many were able to continue their work. However, no adjustments to the curriculum were made as a result of the war, except for a few lectures in medicine. As a result of both this and the fact that the universities’ recruitment area was massively reduced, the numbers of students fell sharply. Many professors and students had been called up for active service. Public finances were devastated and shortage management predominated. The war years were marked by great privations in all areas of daily life. Building on this and a few other publications from the fields of medicine, anthropology, and university studies, the following will provide an overview of the situation for universities and research in the Habsburg Empire during the war years. The best overview was presented in an anthology on science, technology, and the military in the period 1914-1918 published in 2014. Compared to other countries, the importance of the First World War for science in the Habsburg Empire has been explored in relatively few studies to date.

Soldatenlieder 1. weltkrieg