The politics of wounds : military patients and medical power in the First World War / Ana Carden-Coyne.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Carden-Coyne, Ana, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Great Britain. Army.

World War, 1914-1918--Medical care--Great Britain.

World War, 1914-1918.

Great Britain. Army--Medical care--History--20th century.

Great Britain.

Medicine, Military--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Medicine, Military.

Physicians--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Physicians.

World War, 1914-1918--Personal narratives, British.

History.

Medical care.

Military pensions--Great Britain--World War, 1914-1918.

Military pensions.

Military Medicine--history.

Patients--history.

Pensions--history.

Medical Subjects:

Military Medicine--history.

Patients--history.

Pensions--history.

Genre:

Personal narratives -- British.

Physical Description:

xii, 382 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2014.

Summary:

This book explores military patients' experiences of frontline medical evacuation, war surgery, and the social world of military hospitals during the First World War. The proximity of the front and the colossal numbers of wounded created greater public awareness of the impact of the war than had been seen in previous conflicts, with serious political consequences. Frequently referred to as 'our wounded', the central place of the soldier in society, as a symbol of the war's shifting meaning, drew contradictory responses of compassion, heroism, and censure. Wounds also stirred romantic and sexual responses. This volume reveals the paradoxical situation of the increasing political demand levied on citizen soldiers concurrent with the rise in medical humanitarianism and war-related charitable voluntarism. The physical gestures and poignant sounds of the suffering men reached across the classes, giving rise to convictions about patient rights, which at times conflicted with the military's pragmatism. Why, then, did patients represent military medicine, doctors and nurses in a negative light? This book listens to the voices of wounded soldiers, placing their personal experience of pain within the social, cultural, and political contexts of military medical institutions. The author reveals how the wounded and disabled found culturally creative ways to express their pain, negotiate power relations, manage systemic tensions, and enact forms of 'soft resistance' against the societal and military expectations of masculinity when confronted by men in pain. The volume concludes by considering the way the state ascribed social and economic values on the body parts of disabled soldiers though the pension system.

Contents:

1 Men in Pain: Triage, Transport, and the War Machine 15

2 Surgical Wars: Wounds, Experiments, and Ethics 88

3 Transformations in the 'Theatre of Dreams': Resuscitation, Anaesthetics, Opportunity, and Patient Agency 140

4 Provocative Wounds: Sociality and Intimacy in War Hospitals 191

5 Silent Wounds: Coercion, Brutality, and Resistance in War Hospitals 275.

ISBN:

9780199698264

0199698260

OCLC:

873822858