Forum Eerste Wereldoorlog

[Yvonne]

Bijgevoegd vindt u de aankondiging van Before my Helpless Sight. Suffering, dying and military medicine on the Western Front 1914-18. Het betreft een geheel geüpdate Engelse vertaling van Zacht en Eervol. Lijden en sterven in een Grote Oorlog, en zal in maart 2009 verschijnen.

Dr. Leo van Bergen

Medisch historicus

Medical historian



VUmc Amsterdam, afd. Metamedica

VU Medical Center. dep. Metamedica (Medical Humanities)



Schrijver van o.a. Zacht en Eervol. Lijden en sterven in een Grote Oorlog

Writer of f.i. Before my Helpless Sight. Suffering, dying and military medicine on the Western Front







*

Despite the numerous vicious conflicts that scarred the twentieth century, the horrors of the Western Front continue to exercise a particularly strong hold on the modern imagination. The unprecedented scale and mechanization of the war changed forever the way suffering and dying were perceived and challenged notions of what the nations could reasonably expect of their military. Examining experiences of the Western front, this book looks at the life of a soldier, from the moment he marched to battle, until he was buried. In five chapters - Battle, Body, Mind, Aid, Death - it describes and analyzes the physical and mental hardship of the men who fought on a front that stretched from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border.

Beginning with a broad description of the war it then analyzes the medical aid the Tommies, Bonhommes and Frontschweine received - or often enough did not receive - revealing how this aid was often given for military and political reasons rather than for humanitarian ones (getting the men back to the front or weapons factory and trying to spare the state as many war-pensions as possible). It concludes with a chapter on the many ways death presented itself on or around the battlefield, and sets out in detail the problems that arise when more people are killed than possibly can be buried properly.

Contrary to most books in the field this study does not focus on one single issue - such as venereal disease, plastic surgery, shell-shock or the military medical service - but takes a broad view on wounds and illnesses across both sides of the conflict. Drawing on British, French, German and Dutch sources it shows the consequences of modern warfare on the human individuals caught up in it, and the way it influences our thinking on 'humanitarian' activities.

# Imprint: Ashgate
# Illustrations: Includes 20 b&w illustrations
# Published: February 2009
# Format: 234 x 156 mm
# Extent: 538 pages
# Binding: Hardback
# ISBN: 978-0-7546-5853-5
# Price : £35.00 » Online: £31.50
# BL Reference: 940.4'75
# LoC Control No: 20008037954
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Met hart en ziel

[Richard]

Ik ben blij dat het Van Bergen gelukt is een subsidiepotje te vinden om het boek te vertalen. Boeken van dat kaliber verdienen internationale aandacht: het is een van de beste van de afgelopen jaren.

[Marijn2]

[Yvonne]

Review of Leo van Bergen, Before My Helpless Sight: Suffering, Dying and Military Medicine on the Western Front, 1914-1918. (Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing, 2009)

Leo van Bergen=s book, Before My Helpless Sight, is an extraordinary achievement on at least three levels. First, the book provides an invaluable trove of information on the history of war and on the history of medicine. Richly footnoted and indexed, with an extensive bibliography, it will be an important source of information for future historians and analysts of the role of the healing arts in relation to armed conflict. Second, the book presents a moving description of the Great War, supported by 20 remarkable illustrations. Rarely has there appeared such a readable narrative on the heroic and tragic ways in which a war was fought and the dedicated yet at times inept ways in which medical workers attempted to tend the dying and treat the wounded. Third, and most importantly, the book holds clear lessons for our own times. The policy mistakes in the planning and the execution of the war, the military mistakes in strategy and tactics, and the medical mistakes in triage and treatment during the Awar to end all wars@ must be remembered or they will undoubtedly be repeated in future wars. The descriptions of the dysfunctional and shameful ways in which combatants were sent into battle and of the suffering not only through physical wounds but also through what was then called Ashell shock@ and is now called Apost-traumatic stress syndrome,@ are directly relevant to the discussions of current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This book is the most recent example of a long tradition of work in the Netherlands on medicine and its relationship to war, a field known as @medical polemology.@ One of the leaders of this field of study and action was Dr. J.A. Verdoorn, whose pathbreaking book, Arts en Oorlog (Medicine and War) awakened many military and medical policy makers to the folly of modern warfare. The establishment of the Dutch Medical Association for Peace Research (NVMP), the affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in the Netherlands, has supported and strengthened this work.

English language readers, including members of Medact and readers of Medicine Conflict and Survival, will have access to this invaluable book because of the clear and evocative writing of the author and the excellent translation into English by Liz Waters. This book is an important contribution to an understanding of medical consequences of war and a much-needed contribution to the prevention of future wars.

Victor W. Sidel, MD

Distinguished University Professor of Social Medicine

Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Bronx, New York
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Met hart en ziel

[Percy Toplis]

Hier (althans in gedeeltes) te lezen:
http://books.google.nl/books?id=qR-mzZkvaMoC&dq=Military+Medicine+on+the+Western+Front&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=4F8v5DUgUl&sig=vNA9aNM821WaBawKf_UNFCxmqlM&hl=nl&ei=5uxYSsGUKMSD-QakxZjuAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8
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Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.