GPS, HCP, nurses please help with this question

[HagenDaz]

Also medical history buffs.

I have been watching a WW2 tv series. One of the characters gets shot, not enough to kill him, but the wound becomes infected and septic. He develops a fever and starts hallucinating. It is 1943.

I had a quick google and it seems that antibiotics were not available to the general public until 1945.

My character is going to die, isn’t he?

Would there have been any other plausible way to save him then without the use of antibiotics?

Thank you

PS and thank you for everything you’re all doing 🌟

OP, May and Baker produced a sulphonamide antibiotic in 1938, called M and B 693. It was widely used for pneumonias. And penicillin became available in limited amounts in 1943, and was used to save WW2 troops from amputation of infected limbs. Because they had only tiny amounts, they saved the urine from patients and re-extracted the excreted penicillin. By 1945 it was in mass production.

Not all infections were, or are, fatal. The body is pretty good at fighting infection - just not as good as a dose of antibiotics. Although we may need to be relying more on our body's defences in the next few years.

Amputation? Obviously depends where he was shot.

Sepsis isn't always fatal (especially in films!), but it would have been touch and go.

Penicillin was being used in the forces in the later stages of the war - my grandpa had it when he got badly burnt. Whether your particular soldier would get it, and whether it would work, is another question.

My great grandfather died of an ear infection aged 58 In Salford's Hope Hospital in 1940.
Due to a lack of antibiotics the infection caused an abcess to develop in his brain... my Nan was 15 & went in to visit him - there in front of her was his empty bed, stripped clean she said.
Due to the Salford Blitz the hospital hadn't been able to contact the family.

Just days before the abcess killed him, a bomb wiped out a whole wing of Hope Hospital taking with it operating theatres & many staff & patients, very tragic times.

My grandfather was shot on 6th June 1944 (D-day landings). He was RAMC 8th field hospital ambulance crew (I’ve done a bit of research).

He didn’t die until 13th June, probably from a septic wound.

Thank you so much for your replies. Much appreciated.

Without giving a massive spoiler away, my character (who I have got a bit of a crush on) was shot in the stomach but cannot go to hospital as he is an illegal alien.

So, if he was arrested and then treated in hospital, would it be feasible that he could survive to sit out the war in a POW camp?

I am clutching at straws as I want to see him in the next series!

Sorry to hear the tragic stories @Terralee and @Mariebarrone. The war was a terrible time for everyone.

Depends if it’s a flesh wound or it’s hit any bowel. If it’s hit bowel I would think it extremely unlikely he’d survive without antibiotics.