The Medical Board

November 1916


The War Office 'Forms' are a wonder to see,
The questions are many and wide as can be;
And the full information which they must afford
Just puzzles the heads of the Medical Board.
Were you wounded in France, the place you must name.

"Don't know it?" Well, France - it will work out the same.
Was it shrapnel or shell, or bayonet or sword?
They are all represented by some cunning word.
Then 'Shell Shock's' a wound, or at least so will rank;
'Neurasthenia' you call it - that is, if you're frank.
Some sixty odd numbers for wounds they have got,
And you must use the right one or else you'll be shot.

P'raps Fibula Fracture will be on the way -
Compound, comminuted, or simple, pray say;
Is the wound incised, lacerated, or flap?
Infected by poison, organic, or what?
Dislocation perhaps is complete or compound,
Still, simple or partial, it ranks as a wound;
Inorganic, perhaps, or septic infected -
Incomplete, indirect, or perhaps it's impacted.

Were you poisoned by Gas, then a wound you have got,
Although you perhaps were not hit by a shot.
Still, by War Office orders, six papers you get
Which the Board in its wisdom must classify yet.
So the three on the Board hold a long consultation,
Because Army Forms they fill up for the nation;
And to send in the wrong one would rank as a crime -
So they have to consider it many a time.

A Pensioner, p'raps, must be Boarded one day,
So the three take a taxi the whole of the way;
But they're told at the house, when they knock at the door,
That the man whom they seek 'died a twelve-month before.'
We may be at war, but it matters no jot -
Army forms must be filled up, according to rote;
So the three that are chosen agree in accord
That they have a hard time on the Medical Board.

P. R. CRAFT, SGT., R.A.M.C.(T.) (BOARD ROOM)