War Surgery

What happened when the wounded arrived in numbers. Larrey and the flying ambulances, the American Civil War, the evacuation chains of both world wars, limb salvage against amputation, and veteran rehabilitation afterwards. Handled as documented history and not as spectacle. Much of the surviving material shows identifiable patients who could not consent to being photographed, so it is included where it carries the history and the instrument or the ward is preferred to the wound.

Part of Orthopedics

111 moments in this segment.

1. 1553 - Ambroise Paré using a ligature on an artery of an amputated leg of a soldier, during the Siege of Metz, 1553. Photogravure after T. Chartran, 1889.
2. 1568 - A parchment-maker smoothing an animal hide on a stretcher. Woodcut by J. Amman... "Der Permennter". Evacuation as a system, rather than any single device, is arguably war's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
3. 1776 - Plain concise practical remarks, on the treatment of wounds and fractures; to which is added, an appendix, on camp and military hospitals; principally designed for the use of young military and naval. / By John Jones. War has repeatedly acted as an accelerator and a systematiser of orthopedic practice and a builder of institutions, but the science that made those advances possible was overwhelmingly civilian.
4. 1778 - Death as a winged skeleton riding into battle. Etching by J. Gamelin after himself, 1778.
5. 1799 - Procession with seated figure carried on a stretcher, with snakes, Calcutta, West Bengal. Coloured etching by François Balthazar Solvyns, 1799.. 's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
6. 1799 - Guy's Hospital, Southwark: the entrance courtyard, with a patient being carried in on a stretcher. Engraving by W. Woolnoth, 1799, after J. Elmes.. 's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
7. 1799 - Guy's Hospital, Southwark: the entrance courtyard, with a patient being carried in on a stretcher. Coloured engraving by W., 1799, after J.. 's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
8. 1800 - Ambroise Paré, on the battlefield using a ligature for the artery of an amputated leg of a soldier. Wood engraving by Charles Maurand after E. Morin.
9. 1831 - Patient being carried to Boston General hospital on a stretcher. Coloured line engraving by Fenner Sears & Co., 1831, after R. Goodarce.. 's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
10. 1852 - 8th Xhosa War: British soldiers bearing a wounded man on a stretcher and supplies through jungle. Lithograph, ca. 1852.. 's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
11. 1859 - Florence Nightingale with Charles Holte Bracebridge and Selina Bracebridge in a Turkish street. Oil painting by Jerry Barrett, 1859.. 1854. Florence Nightingale brought sanitation and statistics to military medicine in the Crimean War, including her polar area diagrams.
12. 1861 - GANGRENE; Hospital gangrene of an arm stump. Hospital gangrene of an arm stump, taken from the book The medical and surgical history of the war of the rebellion, (1861-65) / Prepared, in accordance with the acts of Congress, under the direction of Surgeon General, Joseph K. Barnes, United States Army, plate XV. The Army Medical Museum was founded in 1862 and the resulting Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, published 1870 to 1888, is one of the great medical documentation projects.
13. 1861 - Pvt. Lewis Francis (SP 113), National Museum of Health and Medicine. The Army Medical Museum was founded in 1862 and the resulting Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, published 1870 to 1888, is one of the great medical documentation projects. It is the origin of the Otis Historical Archives collection.
14. 1861 - Amputation Knife - DPLA - d3d170f75b7fb07594cd4344b9754a39. This item is an amputation knife that was used by surgeons during the Civil War. The Army Medical Museum was founded in 1862 and the resulting Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, published 1870 to 1888, is one of the great medical documentation projects.
15. 1861 - Amputation Knife - DPLA - eaf43cb89cb619735cd107a4022b7207 (page 2). This item is an amputation knife that was used by surgeons during the Civil War. The Army Medical Museum was founded in 1862 and the resulting Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, published 1870 to 1888, is one of the great medical documentation projects.
16. 1863 - Letter from William Parker Johnson to William Blackstone(?), January 8, 1863, and reply, January 19, 1863 - DPLA - d742f3618443966a619b2f314ef83f82 (page 3). William Blackstone was William Parker Johnson's father-in-law. War has repeatedly acted as an accelerator and a systematiser of orthopedic practice and a builder of institutions, but the science that made those advances possible was overwhelmingly civilian.
17. 1863 - Cpl. Charles N. Lapham (SP 155), National Museum of Health and Medicine. The Army Medical Museum was founded in 1862 and the resulting Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, published 1870 to 1888, is one of the great medical documentation projects. It is the origin of the Otis Historical Archives collection.
18. 1863 - Letter from William Parker Johnson to William Blackstone, March 8, 1863f58c67b6dc78e837679223e80b7a2 (page 1). William Blackstone is inferred to the be receipient of this letter though he was actually William Park Johnson's father-in-law. War has repeatedly acted as an accelerator and a systematiser of orthopedic practice and a builder of institutions, but the science that made those advances possible was overwhelmingly civilian.
19. 1864 - Pvt. Henry Ewell (CP 1172), National Museum of Health and Medicine. The McKee-Farrar prosthesis, metal on metal, launched in 1961. It suffered high rates of aseptic loosening and fell from favour once metal on polyethylene appeared.
20. 1864 - The history of the Civil War in America - comprising a full and impartial account of the origin and progress of the rebellion, of the various naval and military engagements, of the heroic deeds (14782. The history of the Civil War in America - comprising a full and impartial account of the origin and progress of the rebellion, of the various naval and military engagements, of the heroic deeds. The Army Medical Museum was founded in 1862 and the resulting Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, published 1870 to 1888, is one of the great medical documentation projects.
21. 1871 - Franco-Prussian War: in the siege of Paris. a surgeon of the Garde Nationale (formerly a professor at the Ecole de Médecine) meets an army surgeon, who is one of his former students. Coloured transfer. (J. Renard), 1871. In the background are bodies of dead horses and people, and ruined buildings of Paris. War has repeatedly acted as an accelerator and a systematiser of orthopedic practice and a builder of institutions, but the science that made those advances possible was overwhelmingly civilian.
22. 1876 - Serbo-Turkish War: English surgeons going with ambulances to the Battle of Alexinatz. Wood engraving, 1876.. 's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
23. 1896 - Fracture of the lower end of the radius, called "Colles's fracture". Lithograph by Battle & Co.. 19 January 1896, with Edwin Brant Frost making the plate.
24. 1899 - Boer War: the sanatorium camp used during the siege of Kimberley. Process print after Bennett, 1899.
25. 1900 - Boer War: wounded soldiers waiting outside a field hospital for examination by the surgeon. Halftone after R. Thiele, c.1900.. 's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
26. 1900 - Boer War: wounded Boers are getting off a train, and one is being carried on a stretcher. Watercolour by G. Soper, ca. 1900.. 's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
27. 1900 - Boer War: wounded soldiers being lifted off a hospital ship and carried away on stretchers. Halftone, c. 1900, after F. de Haenen after J. Bruton.. 's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
28. 1900 - Boer War: an army surgeon at work on a battlefield where many lie injured. Halftone, c. 1900.
29. 1904 - Russo-Japanese War: taking wounded men on stretchers off the hospital ship "Kobe Maru". Pen and ink drawing by H. Johnson, 1904.. 's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
30. 1904 - Russo-Japanese War: soldiers carrying wounded men on a stretcher. Collotype, c. 1904.. 's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
31. 1904 - Russo-Japanese War: soldiers bringing the wounded on foot and stretcher through Kaiping, China. Collotype, c. 1904.. 's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
32. 1905 - The Japanese army surgeon in his element : first aid to the wounded in the Manchurian battlefield / Photo-Nouvelles Agency.. (12 August 1905?) showing workers from "the Japanese Army Surgical Department at a first-aid station in the field, where surgeons are doing what they can... War has repeatedly acted as an accelerator and a systematiser of orthopedic practice and a builder of institutions, but the science that made those advances possible was overwhelmingly civilian.
33. 1910 - World War I: two men carrying a stretcher among the trenches in France. Wash drawing by D. Lindsay, ca. 191-.. 's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
34. 1914 - THE WOMEN'S HOSPITAL CORPS DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR HU90880. Priority for anaesthesia is a textbook dispute. Crawford Long used ether in Georgia in 1842 but published late, Horace Wells demonstrated nitrous oxide unsuccessfully in 1844, William T.G. Morton gave the public ether demonstration at the Massachusetts General Hospital on 16 October 1846, Charles Jackson claimed priority against Morton, and James Young Simpson introduced chloroform in 1847.
35. 1916 - Amputees Learn To Use Artificial Limbs (1916). British Pathé film of 1916 showing amputees learning to use artificial limbs. Roehampton, at Queen Mary's Hospital, became the centre of British wartime limb fitting.
36. 1916 - The Battle of the Somme: Dressing station,. Imperial War Museums footage of a dressing station from The Battle of the Somme. The 1916 film is one of the earliest widely seen moving images of battlefield casualties.
37. 1917 - Disabled Veterans Learn Trades (1914-1918). British Pathé footage from the First World War of disabled veterans learning trades. Retraining programmes were framed as returning men to productive work rather than as care.
38. 1917 - Medical Department - First Aid - In Theatre of Operations - Wounded American soldiers arriving at a base hospital in France. Scope and content: Date Taken: 5/1/1918 Photographer: Kadell and Herbert. War has repeatedly acted as an accelerator and a systematiser of orthopedic practice and a builder of institutions, but the science that made those advances possible was overwhelmingly civilian.
39. 1918 - Prosthetics being fitted to a wounded WW1 soldier in 1918. Footage of a prosthesis being fitted to a wounded soldier in 1918. Limb fitting in the last year of the war was already an industrial-scale operation.
40. 1919 - Indian Army Wounded in Hospital in the Dome, Brighton Art.IWMART323. Long wards of children in frames are the characteristic institutional image of orthopedics for the first two thirds of the twentieth century, when the caseload was polio and skeletal tuberculosis.
41. 1921 - Artificial Arms (1921). British Pathé film of 1921 on artificial arms. Upper limb prosthetics lagged behind legs in function and in acceptance by users.
42. 1943 - “ ESSENTIALS OF FIRST AID ” U.S. NAVY WWII TRAINING FILM TOURNIQUETS & BASIC MEDICAL CARE XD46194. A United States Navy training film of the Second World War on first aid, tourniquets and basic medical care. Films of this kind record what was taught to non-medical personnel about limb injury.
43. 1944 - [Films of the 18th General Hospital] / by R. Carmichael Tilghman : [Reel 4]. Film of the 18th General Hospital by R. Carmichael Tilghman, from the Johns Hopkins Medical Archives. American university hospitals staffed named general hospitals overseas during the Second World War.
44. 1944 - War Dept Film Bulletin 146: Medical Service In The Invasion Of Normandy 1944 (full). War Department Film Bulletin 146 on medical service in the invasion of Normandy, 1944. Evacuation planning was a major part of the operation's design.
45. 1944 - SC 190308 - Field nurses of the 13th Field Hospital, Omaha Beach, France, first to arrive in Normandy to tend wounded, take time for chow.. Left to right: 2nd Lt. Mildred R. Middleton, Cottageville, S.C., 2nd Lt. Mildred R. Middleton, Cottageville, S.C., 2nd Lt. Gola B. Fuller, Ash Grove, Mo., and 2nd Lt. Marie C. Stoudemire, Columbus, S.C. 15 June, 1944. Photographer: Weintraub.
46. 1945 - Canadian Army Newsreel, No. 99 (1945). Canadian Army Newsreel No. 99 from 1945, held by Library and Archives Canada. Wartime newsreels are among the few moving-image records of casualty handling made at the time.
47. 1945 - Marine Aid Station Under Fire on Beach, Iwo Jima, 1945. Evacuation as a system, rather than any single device, is arguably war's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
48. 1952 - MASH Actual Korean War film - Army H-13 helicopters at Mobile Army Surgery Hospital. Korean War footage of H-13 helicopters at a mobile army surgical hospital. Helicopter evacuation shortened the time from wounding to surgery more than any surgical change of that war.
49. 2008 - A sandwich for one of our wounded at the Dressing station. Herkent u mensen of locaties of heeft u een bijzonder verhaal te vertellen bij één van de foto’s, laat dan een reactie achter (als u ingelogd bent bij Flickr) of stuur een mailtje naar: [email protected]! War has repeatedly acted as an accelerator and a systematiser of orthopedic practice and a builder of institutions, but the science that made those advances possible was overwhelmingly civilian.
50. 2013-01-11 - War Surgery, 1914-18. National Army Museum on war surgery from 1914 to 1918. Debridement, wound irrigation, transfusion, anti-tetanus treatment and faster evacuation all changed together, which is why single-cause claims about the period do not hold.
51. 2013 - Go Time, CLB-6 finishes ITX in Mojave Desert. A spinning circle of light signals a helicopter during casualty evacuation training conducted by Combat Logistics Battalion 6, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, at Twentynine Palms, Calif., June 3, 2013. Evacuation as a system, rather than any single device, is arguably war's greatest contribution to this field, and it begins with Larrey's flying ambulances.
52. 2014-05-26 - Broken Bodies, Suffering Spirits Part 3: Civil War Doctors. Mütter Museum on Civil War doctors, part of its Broken Bodies, Suffering Spirits series. Most Civil War surgeons had little or no prior surgical experience.
53. 2014-07-23 - Broken Bodies, Suffering Spirits Part 7: Wounds and Surgery. Mütter Museum on wounds and surgery in its Broken Bodies, Suffering Spirits series about the American Civil War. Much of this material depicts identifiable patients who could not consent to being recorded.
54. 2014-08-01 - Infections - WW1 Uncut - BBC. BBC on wound infection in the First World War. Antisepsis had been superseded by asepsis, but neither answered the heavily contaminated wounds of the Western Front.
55. 2014-08-05 - WWI Legacies: Prosthetics. Wall Street Journal on the prosthetic legacies of the First World War. State limb-fitting programmes were among the first large disability services in Europe.
56. 2014-10-08 - Broken Bodies, Suffering Spirits Part 9: Medical Legacy. Mütter Museum on the medical legacy of the American Civil War. The Army Medical Museum, founded in 1862, and the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion came directly out of it.
57. 2015-03-02 - A Lifetime of Service – The Story of Doug Cushway (1923 – 2019). The War Amps on Doug Cushway, 1923 to 2019, an amputee veteran and long-serving advocate. The War Amps was founded by returning amputees themselves.
58. 2015-03-18 - Queensland doctors and nurses in the First World War digital story. State Library of Queensland on doctors and nurses in the First World War. Australian medical personnel served in Egypt, Gallipoli and on the Western Front.
59. 2015-06-03 - Civil War Medicine & Surgery (broadcast 2015 June 3). US National Archives on Civil War medicine and surgery. The war generated the first systematic American military medical record-keeping.
60. 2015 - 2015 Victims of War in Ukraine - Exhibition by Still Miracle Photography. This photography exhibition uncovers complex issues surrounding the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine. War has repeatedly acted as an accelerator and a systematiser of orthopedic practice and a builder of institutions, but the science that made those advances possible was overwhelmingly civilian.
61. 2015-07-30 - Museum devoted to battlefield surgery. AP Archive on a museum devoted to battlefield surgery. Military medical museums hold instruments, specimens and photography that civilian collections generally do not.
62. 2015-08-03 - The development of orthopaedic surgery in WWI. AP Archive footage on the development of orthopaedic surgery in the First World War. The claim that war drives orthopedic advance is only half true, because the enabling science of the period was overwhelmingly civilian.
63. 2015-09-18 - War doctor | On The Frontline. International Committee of the Red Cross on the work of a war surgeon. War surgery is contemporary practice, not only history.
64. 2015-11-11 - The Evolution of Battlefield Medicine. Columbia University Department of Surgery on the evolution of battlefield medicine. Dominique Jean Larrey's flying ambulances of the Napoleonic wars introduced organised evacuation and a form of triage.
65. 2016-08-04 - Sacred Trust Talks 2016 - Medical Lessons from the Civil War Battlefields. Gettysburg Foundation Sacred Trust talk on medical lessons from the Civil War battlefields. Evacuation and hospital organisation changed more during the war than surgical technique did.
66. 2017-04-16 - The development of orthopaedic surgery in WWI. Archive footage on the development of orthopaedic surgery in the First World War, prepared for schools. Robert Jones, not Hugh Owen Thomas, was the surgeon who deployed the splint at the front; Thomas had died in 1891.
67. 2017-05-04 - Surgical History Group Presentation: War and Surgery. American College of Surgeons Surgical History Group on war and surgery. The claim that war drives advance is only half true: the enabling science of the twentieth century was overwhelmingly civilian.
68. 2017 - A Wounded Man in a Hospital Bed Art.IWMART5053. A Wounded Man in a Hospital Bed image: a wounded soldier lies in a hospital bed, looking straight at the viewer. War has repeatedly acted as an accelerator and a systematiser of orthopedic practice and a builder of institutions, but the science that made those advances possible was overwhelmingly civilian.
69. 2017 - A wounded First World War soldier with facial injuries has a plaster cast made of his face so that a mask can be produced to cover his wounds.The work was undertaken at the 3rd General Hospital in Wan. 30452. War has repeatedly acted as an accelerator and a systematiser of orthopedic practice and a builder of institutions, but the science that made those advances possible was overwhelmingly civilian.
70. 2017 - The Development of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery during the First World War Q30449. War has repeatedly acted as an accelerator and a systematiser of orthopedic practice and a builder of institutions, but the science that made those advances possible was overwhelmingly civilian.
71. 2017-09-20 - Amputations: The Civil War in Four Minutes. American Battlefield Trust on amputation in the Civil War. Amputation was the commonest major operation of that war, and its scale created both the limb trade and the Army Medical Museum's specimen collection.
72. 2018-03-26 - PRONI - Nursing & Medicine on Film by Imperial War Museums. Public Record Office of Northern Ireland presents Imperial War Museums film on nursing and medicine. Nursing carried most of the day-to-day work recorded in these films.
73. 2018-05-30 - Photos of Wounded German Soldiers During World War 1 (1917-1918). Photographs of wounded German soldiers from 1917 and 1918. Clinical photography of this period records identifiable men who could not consent, and it is included here for the record it carries rather than for effect.
74. 2018-12-17 - Michael Crumplin - The Bloody Fields of Waterloo: Medical Support for Wellington’s Greatest Victory. Michael Crumplin on medical support at Waterloo. Waterloo produced amputation on a scale that tested every assumption of Napoleonic-era surgery.
75. 2019-12-28 - Casualty Clearing Stations in the Great War. On casualty clearing stations in the Great War. The evacuation chain ran from regimental aid post through field ambulance and clearing station to base hospital.
76. 2020-01-28 - NORMASH (english version) The Norwegian Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the Korean War 1951-54. On NORMASH, the Norwegian mobile army surgical hospital in Korea from 1951 to 1954. Several nations contributed surgical units to the United Nations force.
77. 2020-04-30 - History Happy Hour: Limbs, Lost and Found. American Civil War Museum on limbs lost and found. Amputated limbs were collected as specimens for the Army Medical Museum, from people who had no say in it.
78. 2020-06-24 - Adventures in History: Carers - Part One. Imperial War Museums on carers in wartime, part one. Long-term care for the wounded fell largely on families and on women's unpaid labour.
79. 2020 - Adventures in History: Carers – Part Two. Imperial War Museums on carers in wartime, part two. The social history of war injury extends well beyond the hospital.
80. 2020-08-19 - Medical Care at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek. National Museum of Civil War Medicine on medical care at the Battle of Wilson's Creek. Early-war medical arrangements were improvised and collapsed under casualty numbers.
81. 2020-10-18 - Side by Side Surgery - Amputation Through the Ages. National Museum of Civil War Medicine on amputation through the ages. Anaesthesia was available in the American Civil War; antisepsis was not, and infection drove mortality.
82. 2020-10-20 - Civil War Medicine and the Body. National Museum of Civil War Medicine on Civil War medicine and the body. Much of the surviving clinical photography depicts soldiers and hospital inmates who could not consent to being recorded.
83. 2020-10-26 - How James E. Hanger, Civil War Amputee, Invented A Prosthetic Leg | Medical Inventions. On James Edward Hanger, an early amputee of the American Civil War who designed his own leg and founded a limb-making firm. The company that carries his name still operates.
84. 2020-11-21 - Stories from Antietam Field Hospitals with John Banks. John Banks on field hospitals at Antietam. Antietam produced casualties beyond anything the Union medical service had planned for.
85. 2020-11-27 - Prosthetics and Poverty: Disabled servicemen and their families after the war | Martin Purdy. Martin Purdy on prosthetics and poverty among disabled servicemen and their families after the First World War. Pensions and limb provision were inadequate and the families carried the difference.
86. 2021-04-23 - Medicine in the American Revolution with Dr. Ronald S. Gibbs. Ronald Gibbs on medicine in the American Revolution at Brandywine Battlefield Park. Eighteenth century military surgery had neither anaesthesia nor any understanding of infection.
87. 2021-06-03 - Casualty Clearing Station, with Andy Robertshaw. Andy Robertshaw on the casualty clearing station. The clearing station was the point in the evacuation chain where surgery was first possible.
88. 2021-07-08 - Armory Square Hospital - Washington's most famous Civil War medical facility. On Armory Square Hospital in Washington, a major Civil War medical facility. Purpose-built pavilion hospitals were one of the war's lasting institutional legacies.
89. 2021-10-29 - A Soldier's Story, Patrick Doyle. National Museum of Civil War Medicine tells the story of the soldier Patrick Doyle. Naming the individual is the correct standard for material that depicts identifiable patients.
90. 2021-10-29 - A Soldier's Story, Richard Hughes. National Museum of Civil War Medicine tells the story of the soldier Richard Hughes. Individual case records survive because the Army Medical Museum collected them systematically.
91. 2021-11-15 - Broken Faces of WWI: How Reconstructive Surgery Was Born. On facial reconstruction in the First World War. Work at Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup, ran alongside the limb-fitting programme at Roehampton.
92. 2022-01-18 - ICPLP2021 - Prof. Tsao: Changing Notions of Phantom Limb Pain. Professor Tsao on changing notions of phantom limb pain. Silas Weir Mitchell named the phenomenon in the nineteenth century from Civil War amputees.
93. 2022-02-08 - Exploring Civil War Surgery: Tools, Techniques, and Anesthetics. Ohio History Connection on Civil War surgery, its instruments and its anaesthetics. Anaesthesia was available in the American Civil War; antisepsis was not.
94. 2022-02-09 - Medicine in the First World War. Imperial War Museums on medicine in the First World War. Debridement, Carrel-Dakin wound irrigation, transfusion, anti-tetanus treatment and shortened evacuation all changed during the same period, which is why single-cause claims about wartime mortality do not survive scrutiny.
95. 2022-03-31 - Damage Control Orthopedics in an Unequal World. Harvard Global Orthopaedics Collaborative on damage control orthopedics in an unequal world. What is possible in trauma care depends on where the injury happens, and road traffic injury is concentrated in countries with the least capacity.
96. 2022-06-06 - 17th century Battlefield Surgery: Extracting Bullets. Newcastle University Library on seventeenth century battlefield surgery and bullet extraction. Early modern military surgery is documented through printed manuals rather than through photographs.
97. 2022-06-06 - 17th century Battlefield Surgery: Amputations. Newcastle University Library on seventeenth century battlefield amputation. Ambroise Paré's account of running out of cauterising oil belongs to this period of practice.
98. 2023-08-09 - Online lecture | Prostheses and the First World War. Royal Armouries lecture on prostheses and the First World War. The war produced both mass limb loss and the institutions built to answer it.
99. 2023-08-09 - The Impossible Challenge Facing The US Medical Corps In Korea. On the medical challenge facing the United States medical corps in Korea. Cold injury and blast trauma dominated the caseload.
100. 2024-02-03 - French army surgeon Dr. Larrey (and medical care during the Napoleonic Age). On Larrey and medical care in the Napoleonic age. The ambulance volante was a system of horse-drawn evacuation rather than a single vehicle design.
101. 2024-02-08 - ‘The Men with Broken Faces': facial surgery in the First World War. On facial surgery in the First World War. Reconstructive work at Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup, ran alongside the limb-fitting programme at Roehampton.
102. 2024-03-20 - Frontline Medics reveal the grim reality of Ukraine’s war. Imperial War Museums on frontline medics in the war in Ukraine. War surgery is present-tense, and blast injury and limb salvage are current problems rather than historical ones.
103. 2024-05-10 - They Went Into Battle Unarmed | The True Story of WW1’s Stretcher Bearers. On the stretcher bearers of the First World War. Evacuation time from the field to surgical care was one of the variables that changed most in the war, and it confounds any single-cause account of falling mortality.
104. 2025-03-05 - Life on the Front Lines Cathy Drake | A Korean War MASH Nurse Remembers. Korean War MASH nurse Cathy Drake remembers life on the front lines. Nursing carried the continuous work of these units.
105. 2025-03-06 - Doctor Larrey: Napoleon's Surgeon and Pioneer of Battlefield Medicine (with Mick Crumplin) | Ep 65. Mick Crumplin on Larrey as Napoleon's surgeon and a pioneer of battlefield medicine. Larrey's contribution was organisational, in evacuation and sorting, as much as operative.
106. 2025-03-20 - Medical History: Amputations In The Battlefield. History Hit on battlefield amputation. Amputation was the principal major operation of pre-antiseptic military surgery, and mortality was driven by infection rather than by the operation itself.
107. 2025-09-22 - What Was The Carrel-Dakin Method And How Was It Used In WWI? - First World War Journal. On the Carrel-Dakin method of wound irrigation in the First World War. It was one of several changes in the same window that make single-cause claims about falling mortality unsustainable.
108. 2025-10-24 - Nurse From a MASH Unit Describes Life Behind the Front – 1952. A MASH nurse describes life behind the front in 1952. First-person accounts from women in these units are a small surviving record.
109. 2025-11-14 - Army Nurse Talks About Life in a MASH Unit – Recorded 1974. An army nurse describes life in a MASH unit, recorded in 1974. Oral histories recorded decades after the events are the main surviving first-person record.
110. 2025-11-25 - How the RAMC Worked in WW1 | Field Ambulance Organisation Explained. On how the Royal Army Medical Corps organised field ambulances in the First World War. Organisation, not technique, is what shortened the time from wounding to surgery.
111. 2026-04-17 - Was the battle of Waterloo really fought on the playing Fields of Eton? - by Mick Crumplin. Mick Crumplin for the Waterloo Association. Dominique Jean Larrey's flying ambulances introduced organised evacuation to the Napoleonic armies.