War and Medicine

The controversy over the Smithsonian Enola Gay exhibition implies that it is still taboo to question the United States' use of the atomic bomb. Veterans' groups and conservatives succeeded in using the exhibit to justify and glorify the use of the atomic bomb. Historical facts, ...

Primero de Mayo de 1937, un grupo de voluntarias procedentes de la Europa del Este se hacen un retrato en Barcelona antes de salir con destino a un hospital militar internacional situado en Onteniente. A todas les une la misma causa, huyen de la persecución antisemita en sus países de origen y quieren combatir el fascismo en la guerra de España.
Esta fotografía da origen a la investigación de Sven Tuytens, corresponsal belga en España, que ha reconstruido la vida de estas veintiuna mujeres a través de cartas, entrevistas, fotografías, sus propios testimonios y archivos.
Tuytens recupera con Las mamás belgas, el nombre con que las llamaron los heridos republicanos a quienes atendieron. Los más mayores del lugar aún las recuerdan con alegría. Fueron aire fresco en los tiempos más difíciles y estuvieron ayudando a la República hasta el final de la guerra. El autor ha recorrido sus pisadas para dar a conocer estas vidas solidarias. Varias de ellas terminaron en la resistencia, espionaje, lucha armada o en campos de concentración.
Con Las mamás belgas quiere rendir homenaje a esta valientes olvidadas por la Historia. Algunas sobrevivieron a la II Guerra Mundial, pero su ejercicio de solidaridad, sacrificio y entrega pasó al olvido. Hasta ahora.

In the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, the Ottoman Empire encountered difficulties in transporting the wounded and sick soldiers. The difficulties were generally due to the insufficient transportation infrastructure, the lack of an effective mobilization plan, as well as an unawareness of the importance of military health organization. In order to overcome the difficulties, help was requested from foreign countries and Red Cross associations. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, Great Britain provided great support to the Ottoman armies in transporting their patients. The British especially established transportation systems on highways and railways. Experiences gained in this war constituted an important field practice for patient transport for the British officers who published their observations at the end of the war. Undoubtedly, this practice provided a substantial contribution to both the development of Great Britain's own patient transportation system and the course of wars fought in the East.

BRITISH HOSPITALS IN ISTANBUL, SMYRNA AND DARDANELLES IN THE CRIMEAN WAR The British, ally of the Ottoman Empire during the Crimean War, opened many hospitals in the East, primarily in Istanbul. Both the wounded soldiers from the front and epidemics especially cholera drew attention to the hospitals and the hospital services. The conditions of the hospitals revealed the weakness of the British Military health services. Therefore the British authorities had to put new regulations in British hospitals. All arrangements made in hospitals throughout the war caused a fundamental transformation in the British military health organisations. This article focuses on British hospitals, their features and services in Istanbul, Smyrna and the Dardanelles. This study intends to provide a contribution to studies about the war's health aspect.

1. Med War. 1987 Jan-Mar;3(1):11-22. A psychosocial view of the nuclear arms race. Middleton H. PMID: 3561325 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]. MeSH Terms: Humans; International Cooperation*; Models, Psychological*; Nuclear Warfare*; Politics; Social Change.

The symbolic meanings of the Balkans overcome the space of political and include associative strings such as liminaliy, incompatibility with the cultural trends of the Occident; narrative of ignorance; discourse on the ethnic and cultural mixture. One of the signs of this diversity reflected on the Balkans, is given the meaning of the disease.
Reports from English, American, French and German diplomats from the nineteenth century to the present day speak of the Balkans as a mixture of nations that produced "racial degeneration," and therefore physical and mental illness. Missionaries, diplomats, policy advisers more than a hundred and fifty years ago noticed that the population of the Balkans "has been mutilated in numerous wars"; people more often than others appear with "natural deformations", such as lack of extremities, micro and hydrocephalus; that giants and dwarves here are more likely to meet here than in other parts of the world. The high mortality and encounter with diseases that are unknown in other parts of the world is attributed to the hybridity of the Balkans, which is in the modern language of globalization the ultimate goal of interculturality.
Arriving in Belgrade, back in 1884. Missionary Alfred Wright wrote that Belgrade is a "market of deformity". This quality comes from the borderline position (Wright, 1884: 15-16). Similar conclusions in the twentieth century can be noticed in travelogues of Captain Malcolm Burr, missionary Francesca Wilson, English writer, Lena Yovichich,

Article on eye doctor and future art collector Antonio Anastacio Gonçalves and his annotated copy of post-WWI besteseller memoir of the trenches  by André Brun 'Malta das Trincheiras'. His annotations not only display his command of the different realities of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps while in France, they also constitute the main documental insight into the collector's views and opinions.

В статье на примере архивов Урала рассказывается о перспективах использования документов партийных и профсоюзных учреждений для дальнейшего осмысления исторического опыта работы эвакуационных госпиталей в период Второй мировой войны в 1940-1946 годах

Eduard Miloslavić (Oakland/SAD, 1884 – St. Louis/SAD, 1952.) is known as forensic expert and the founder and the head of the first Department of Forensic Medicine of the Zagreb School of Medicine. Moreover he is well known as a member of the expert team which investigated the massacre in the Katyn forest near Smolensk, and proved that crimes were committed by Soviets during the Second World War. On the other hand his pathological-anatomical career in Vienna as well as his engagement during the Balkan and the First World War have not been explored so fare. However this segment of his life was important in shaping professional mentality which he adopted under the influence of the most prominent personalities of the period such as Rudolf Virchow, Ludwig Aschoff and Anton Weichselbaum. Their attitudes were inspired by constitutional and military pathology – which was determined to search into the possibilities to achive the healthy constitution of the whole community. Therefore the results of this paper present the part of Miloslavić's professional life in Vienna which enlightens the relationship between medicine and sanitary war organization on one side, and Miloslavić's professional and social attitudes which will become even more prominent during this expertise in Katynu in 1943.
/// Eduard Miloslavić (Oakland-SAD, 1884 – St. Louis-SAD, 1952) u historiografiji je poznat kao forenzičar, voditelj i osnivač Zavoda za sudsku medicinu i kriminalistiku u Zagrebu (1935-1945) te po svjedočanstvu o masovnim zločinima počinjenima nad Poljacima u Katynskoj šumi tijekom Drugog svjetskog rata. Njegova patološko-anatomska karijera u Beču te sudjelovanje u Drugome balkanskom i Prvome svjetskom ratu do sada nisu obrađivani. Upravo je taj dio Miloslavićeva života bio presudan za oblikovanje specifične medicinske ideologije koju je usvojio, među čijim su zagovarateljima bili najveća imena onodobne patološke anatomije, poput Rudolfa Virchowa, Ludwiga Aschoffa i Antona Weichselbauma. Njihova su stajališta proizašla iz teorijskog okvira konstitucijske i ratne patologije - struke kojoj se pripisivala mogućnost zaštite zdrave konstitucije cjelokupne zajednice. Prikazani segment Miloslavićevog bečkog razdoblja stoga je važan za razumijevanje međuutjecaja profesije i organizacije saniteta s jedne strane te Miloslavićevog strukovnoga i društvenopolitičkoga opredjeljenja, koji će doći do izražaja tijekom njegova vještačenja u Katynu 1943. godine.

This article examines the development of the Swedish Red Cross Hospital in Busan during 1950–1958, investigating how principal secondary actors affected the hospital’s transition from a military to a civilian hospital. Shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, Sweden, a neutral nation, offered to send a contingent to establish a mobile field hospital, which was to be under the command of the Eighth U.S. Army. This placed the nominally impartial hospital in a tense situation, forcing it to balance military and humanitarian objectives. In the end, a larger semi-mobile evacuation hospital was set up in Busan, where both UN soldiers and prisoners of war were treated; it came to be known as the Swedish Red Cross Hospital. The decrease in and finally the cessation of hostilities in 1953 made the treatment of Korean civilian patients possible and such work was conducted both at the hospital and off-site in other areas of Busan, though initially this was not formally sanctioned by American and UN authorities. Although still a part of the military system, in practice it became a stationary civilian hospital in 1954. After the main hospital closed in 1957, a pediatrics team remained for another year.

To analyse the pre-and post-Gulf War changes in the outcome of pregnancy and to explore the possible causes that could have affected these changes, a retrospective analysis of medical records of patients delivering in Maternity Hospital Kuwait (MHK) was carried out for the ...

Thematic Issue: "Science, Technology and the Close Encounters in War" Call for articles Close Encounters in War Journal (www.closeencountersinwar.org) is a peer-reviewed journal aiming to study war as a human experience through interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches. Wars are among the most ancient and deeply rooted aspects of human cultural evolution. Investigating their meaning by reflecting on how we experience them is therefore essential. Conflict is present in language, culture, instincts, passions, behavioural patterns and the human ability to represent concepts aesthetically. The "encounter" is a fundamental aspect of any experience because it implies that experiences are something that we come across or stumble into. This concept becomes particularly useful to understand how war shapes and develops our minds and affects our behaviours, habits, values, prejudices, and ideas.

The Earth Summit is criticized for failing to address the key issues of land distribution, rights and security. Examples are given of the gross maldistribution of land ownership, and of agricultural and forestry policies which hazard the future of small landholders, both by governments and outsiders. The harmful environmental effects of these policies are described, and a call made for alternative policies which will allow ordinary people to conserve the land and forests on which they depend.

2-4pm, 27 February 2016
AV Room, The Gas Hall, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery,
Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3DH

[Free but registration required: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/war-conscience-191418-marking-the-centenary-of-conscription-tickets-21257506775?utm_campaign=new_event_email&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eb_email&utm_term=viewmyevent_button]

The ‘War & Conscience’ history afternoon marks the centenary of conscription. The first Military Service Act compelled ‘eligible’ men to join the armed forces; those who wished to apply for exemption had to do so before 2 March 1916. The legislation was a landmark in the First World War for millions. For Quakers and many others, conscription went against their conscience and their religious, political and personal beliefs. For everyone caught up in state compulsion, it changed the course of their life. Three talks will explore conscription and the impact it had on communities - with particular focus on the experiences of local people and Quakers from the Midlands - and there will be chance to hear more about the ‘Quakers & the First World War: Lives & Legacies’ project and opportunities to get involved.