Review of Medicine in First World War Europe: Soldiers, Medics, Pacifists by Fiona Reid. (original) (raw)

Medicine and the Goodness of War

Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 1990

For reasons that perhaps have much to do with anti-war socialization in the 1960s and 1970s, social historians of medicine have shied away from systematic study of the relations between medicine and war. Where their work has intersected the wars of this century, they have tended to concur with medical writers on the subject, perceiving war simply as good for medicine. This paper challenges that perception by questioning the causal framework in which the relationship between war and medicine has been set-a framework seen to reify both war and medicine. In addition to observing how military medicine existed in peacetime and, secondly, how wartime and peacetime medicine are not so easily demarcated, it argues that the theatres of war and medicine must be studied as part and parcel of the societies and cultures in which they were set, and that they must be seen as economically and ideologically constitutive with those societies. Pursued in this way, the study of war and medicine ceases to be epiphenomenal to the rest of history, and to the rest of the social history of medicine in particular. It becomes, instead, central to it.

The Great War and the birth of modern medicine

Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies, 2022

Historians, journalists and writers often contrast the First World War with conflicts of previous centuries based on its highly industrialised nature and scale. They write how horse-drawn wagons and mounted infantry made way for highly mobile machines. They also note how industry, alongside government and society, cooperated more closely than before to build a growing number of new technologies. Such developments saw aircraft, tanks, submarines and chemical weapons make their military debut in this global conflict. Armies also carried out logistics and supply operations on a greater scale and over wider distances than before. In addition, belligerent nations mobilised more manpower and over greater geographical distances than ever before. The number of mutilated men and war dead due to the destructive power of weapons and munitions was also greater than ever experienced. Apart from the physically maimed, the psychological impact of the horrors of the war gained new proportions and intensity. For these reasons, it is hardly surprising that the conflict between 1914 and 1918 became known as the Great War since every aspect of the war occurred on a 'greater' scale. At the same time, the war can be described as 'great' due to its beneficial contribution to humankind-as unlikely as that might seem. Due to the war, a greater number of lives could be saved by medical personnel than claimed by hostilities if weighed on a balance sheet over the long term. The most recent experience of the viral pandemic was evidence of this when governments, physicians and scientists dusted off the lessons learned from a century past. But, unlike them, their predecessors often did not have such advantages at the turn of the twentieth century. The contributions of these men, and occasionally women, gave birth to modern medicine, as Thomas Helling's latest publication suggests.