The First World War resulted in the largest amputee cohort in history, with over 41,000 amputees in the UK alone. Limb wounds were (and still are) the most common site of survivable injury in conflict and accounted for 70% of all British casualties from 1914 to 1918. Of these casualties, 59% were caused by artillery or high velocity munitions, wounds that today, in some cases, could be termed ‘blast injury’.To date, there appears to have been no detailed analysis of the impact of this type of injury or pain on veterans’ long-term health and quality of life, or into the evolution of the professional, political and lay concepts, attitudes or clinical assessment and management for these types of chronic pain and the inherent years lost to disability [YLD] it caused.Although amputation rates have been reduced in recent conflicts, chronic residual stump, phantom limb and peripheral neuropathic pain are still significant issues in the rehabilitation of conflict wounds, and it is estimated that up to 85% of amputees suffer from chronic pain as a result of amputation. Given the similarities between the injury patterns caused by First World War weaponry and those from the improvised explosive devices [IEDs] of 21st century conflicts, this project has the potential to inform contemporary medical researchers, clinicians and disability policy as the long-term effects of blast injuries sustained by UK military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan (329 blast-related amputations in total) become more evident.