Military medicine

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For the journal, see Military Medicine (journal).
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French surgeon Ambroise Paré (c. 1510-1590) — known as the "Father of Military Medicine" — attending to a soldier's amputated leg.
Two French military surgeons treating wounded enemies after the battle of Inkermann, November 5, 1854.
WWII era field hospital re-created operating tent using puppets, Diekirch Military Museum, Luxembourg
Mobile Army Surgical Hospital
(MASH)
NORMASH personnel during the Korean War
USNS Mercy
USNS Mercy marked with the red cross, the international protective sign
U.S. Army medical personnel train local Uzbek anesthesia providers at the Fergana Emergency Center in support of Operation Provide Hope.
German Kosovo Force armoured medical transport, marked with the protective sign
Air ambulance of the Royal Australian Air Force in 1943, marked with the protective sign
Miloš L (UGV), a military robot for evacuating the wounded from the battlefield.

The term military medicine has a number of potential connotations. It may mean:

Legal status

Military medical personnel engage in

armed forces (and who hold military ranks) and those who are civilian volunteers. All medical personnel are considered non-combatants under international humanitarian law because of their humanitarian duties, and they may not be attacked and not be taken as prisoners of war; hospitals and other medical facilities and transports identified as such, whether they are military or civilian, may not be attacked either. The red cross, the red crescent and the red crystal are the protective signs recognised under international humanitarian law, and are used by military medical personnel and facilities for this purpose. Attacking military medical personnel, patients in their care, or medical facilities or transports legitimately marked as such is a war crime. Likewise, misusing these protective signs to mask military operations is the war crime of perfidy. Military medical personnel may be armed, usually with service pistols, for the purpose of self defense
or the defense of patients.

Historical significance

The significance of military medicine for combat strength goes far beyond treatment of battlefield injuries; in every major war fought until the late 19th century disease claimed more soldier casualties than did enemy action. During the American Civil War (1860–65), for example, about twice as many soldiers died of disease as were killed or mortally wounded in combat.[1] The Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) is considered to have been the first conflict in which combat injury exceeded disease, at least in the German coalition army which lost 3.47% of its average headcount to combat and only 1.82% to disease.[2] In new world countries, such as Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada, military physicians and surgeons contributed significantly to the development of civilian health care.[3][4]

Improvements in military medicine have increased the survival rates in successive wars, due to improvements in medical evacuation, battlefield medicine and trauma care.[4][5] Similar improvements have been seen in the trauma practices during the Iraq war.[6] Some military trauma care practices are disseminated by citizen soldiers who return to civilian practice.[4][7][8] One such practice is where major trauma patients are transferred to an operating theater as soon as possible, to stop internal bleeding, increasing the survival rate. Within the United States, the survival rate for gunshot wounds has increased, leading to apparent declines in the gun death rate in states that have stable rates of gunshot hospitalizations.[9][10][11][12]

Military medicine by country

North America

Canada

United States

U.S. Army
U.S. Navy
U.S. Air Force

Europe

France

Belgium

Germany

Italy

Russia

Serbia

Sweden

United Kingdom

Asia

India

Israel

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Army Medical Corps

Thailand

Phramongkutklao College of Medicine

Vietnam

  • Vietnam Military Medical University (Học Viện Quân Y) in Hanoi

Other regions

Australia

South Africa

International

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0-345-35942-9
    ., p. 485
  2. ^ Brockhaus' Konversations-Lexikon; 14th ed., Leipzig, Berlin and Vienna 1894; Vol. 8, p. 939.
  3. ^ Vivian Charles McAlister. "Origins of the Canadian School of Surgery" Canadian Journal of Surgery (2007) 50 (5) : 357-363. Available at: [1]
  4. ^
    PMID 19219516
    .
  5. ^ "Chapter 3 - Medical Support 1965-1970". Archived from the original on 2016-06-06.
  6. ^ Service, Lee Bowman, Scripps Howard News (16 March 2013). "Iraq War 10 year anniversary: Survival rate of wounded soldiers better than previous wars". Archived from the original on 4 September 2018. Retrieved 13 June 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ "Military medical techniques saving lives at home - News stories - GOV.UK".
  8. ^ "The role of the gun in the advancement of medicine". 8 January 2015. Archived from the original on 6 January 2018. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  9. PMID 24452421
    .
  10. ^ "Lower murder rate linked to medical advance, not less violence".
  11. ^ Fields, Gary; McWhirter, Cameron (8 December 2012). "In Medical Triumph, Homicides Fall Despite Soaring Gun Violence". Wall Street Journal.
  12. S2CID 51845968
    . Retrieved 1 December 2022.

Further reading

Primary sources

  • Kendrick, Douglas B. Memoirs of a Twentieth-Century Army Surgeon (Sunflower University Press, 19920, U.S. Army

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Military medicine.

U.S. military medicine

Australian military medicine

International Magazine for Military Medicine

NATO Centre of Excellence for Military Medicine

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