Medicine, Warfare, and History^ 



By John F. Fulton 



Sterling Professor of the History of Medicine 

 Yale University 



It is not commonly realized that many of the most significant ad- 

 vances in medical science have been made by medical officers in the 

 armed services or by civilian physicians working under the stimulus 

 of wartime exigency. Whereas the ultimate compensations of war 

 to any society are usually few and seldom recognized, in the field of 

 medicine, over the years, they have been numerous and many of them 

 highly important. A number of examples may be cited from the his- 

 torical record. 



In his illuminating series of notes on the history of military medi- 

 cine, the late Col. Fielding H, Garrison ^ made the observation that, 

 while there were military surgeons in ancient times who occupied po- 

 sitions of responsibility and respect in the armies of Greece and Rome, 

 it was the Swiss Confederation, in the fourteenth century, that ante- 

 dated all other nations of modern Europe in state care of the wounded. 

 Municipal ordinances were issued notifying the individual soldier 

 that his government was behind him and would look after his wel- 

 fare on the field of battle. The eminent historian Conrad Brunner ^ 

 points out further that, from the time of the battle of Laupen in 1339, 

 the Swiss archives are replete with records of monies distributed for 

 the care of the wounded and their dependents. Brunner also dis- 

 covered that barber-surgeons were engaged by individual Cantons to 

 attend the wounded after battle. The Swiss thus set an example to 

 all the other warring countries of western Europe. 



In France in the 1470's we find that Charles the Bold, Duke of 

 Burgundy, had placed a surgeon in each company of 100 lancers, that 

 is, one surgeon to 800 men. It is also recorded that the lancers re- 

 ceived £12 monthly from the Duke's coffers while his surgeon-physi- 



* Reprinted by permission from the Journal of the American Medical Associ- 

 ation, vol. 153. Oct. 3, 1953. 



'Garrison, F. H., Notes on the history of military medicine, Mil. Surg., vol. 

 .50, p. 1, 1922. 



* Brunner, C, Die Verwundeten in den Kriegen der alteu Eidgenossenschaf t : 

 Geschichte des Heeressauitatswesens und der Kriegschirurgie in den schwei- 

 zerischen Landen bis zum Jahre 1798, Tubingen, 1903. 



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