This volume presents the first scholarly assessment of the interconnections between war, medicine, society and modernity. Covering the period 1870 to 1945, this work emphasises the effects of warfare on the development of the modern world.

After years at the margins of medical history, the relationship between war and medicine is at last beginning to move centre-stage. The essays in this volume focus on one important aspect of that relationship: the practice and development of medicine within the armed forces from the late nineteenth century through to the end of the Second World War. During this crucial period, medicine came to occupy an important position in military life, especially during the two world wars when manpower was at a premium. Good medical provisions were vital to the conservation of manpower, protecting servicemen from disease and returning the sick and wounded to duty in the shortest possible time. A detailed knowledge of the serviceman's mind and body enabled the authorities to calculate and standardise rations, training and disciplinary procedures. Spanning the laboratory and the battlefield, and covering a range of national contexts, the essays in this volume provide valuable insights into different national styles and priorities. They also examine the relationship between medical personnel and the armed forces as a whole, by looking at such matters as the prevention of disease, the treatment of psychiatric casualties and the development of medical science. The volume as a whole demonstrates that medicine became an increasingly important part of military life in the era of modern warfare, and suggests new avenues and approaches for future study.

A startling narrative revealing the impressive medical and surgical advances that quickly developed as solutions to the horrors unleashed by World War I. The Great War of 1914-1918 burst on the European scene with a brutality to mankind not yet witnessed by the civilized world. Modern warfare was no longer the stuff of chivalry and honor; it was a mutilative, deadly, and humbling exercise to wipe out the very presence of humanity. Suddenly, thousands upon thousands of maimed, beaten, and bleeding men surged into aid stations and hospitals with injuries unimaginable in their scope and destruction. Doctors scrambled to find some way to salvage not only life but limb. The Great War and the Birth of Modern Medicine provides a startling and graphic account of the efforts of teams of doctors and researchers to quickly develop medical and surgical solutions. Those problems of gas gangrene, hemorrhagic shock, gas poisoning, brain trauma, facial disfigurement, broken bones, and broken spirits flooded hospital beds, stressing caregivers and prompting medical innovations that would last far beyond the Armistice of 1918 and would eventually provide the backbone of modern medical therapy. Thomas Helling’s description of events that shaped refinements of medical care is a riveting account of the ingenuity and resourcefulness of men and women to deter the total destruction of the human body and human mind. His tales of surgical daring, industrial collaboration, scientific discovery, and utter compassion provide an understanding of the horror that laid a foundation for the medical wonders of today. The marvels of resuscitation, blood transfusion, brain surgery, X-rays, and bone setting all had their beginnings on the battlefields of France. The influenza contagion in 1918 was an ominous forerunner of the frightening pandemic of 2020-2021. For anyone curious about the true terrors of war and the miracles of modern medicine, this is a must read.

Correcting the pervading myths of Civil War medicine perpetuated by Hollywood dramatizations, this exploration covers how the sick and wounded were treated on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Through detailed research, these essays show there were actually too few amputations, contrary to popular belief; there were many advances made in the understanding and treatment of diseases and wounds to the nervous system, and new surgical techniques were used to treat battlefield injuries once thought to be certainly fatal. These topics and more are treated by experts in their respective fields, including medical education, science, invention, neuroscience, and mental health. (Publisher)

Medicine is most often understood through the metaphor of war. We encounter phrases such as "the war against the coronavirus," "the front lines of the Ebola crisis," "a new weapon against antibiotic resistance," or "the immune system fights cancer" without considering their assumptions, implications, and history. But there is nothing natural about this language. It does not have to be, nor has it always been, the way to understand the relationship between humans and disease. Medicine Is War shows how this "martial metaphor" was popularized throughout the nineteenth century. Drawing on the works of Mary Shelley, Charles Kingsley, Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Joseph Conrad, Lorenzo Servitje examines how literary form reflected, reinforced, and critiqued the convergence of militarism and medicine in Victorian culture. He considers how, in migrating from military medicine to the civilian sphere, this metaphor responded to the developments and dangers of modernity: urbanization, industrialization, government intervention, imperial contact, crime, changing gender relations, and the relationship between the one and the many. While cultural and literary scholars have attributed the metaphor to late nineteenth-century germ theory or immunology, this book offers a new, more expansive history stretching from the metaphor's roots in early nineteenth-century militarism to its consolidation during the rise of early twentieth-century pharmacology. In so doing, Servitje establishes literature's pivotal role in shaping what war has made thinkable and actionable under medicine's increasing jurisdiction in our lives. Medicine Is War reveals how, in our own moment, the metaphor remains conducive to harming as much as healing, to control as much as empowerment.

Learning from the Wounded: The Civil War and the Rise of American Medical Science

A collection of essays on fundamental issues in the history of medicine in modern Germany.