PMCI - February 2017

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BETWEEN FLESH AND STEEL
BOOK REVIEW Suarez International
Once again in this Issue we have a focus on matters relating
to the very latest products, trends, and training courses in
the world of tactical first aid, but all of these techniques
have come about due to trial, and sometimes sadly, error,
over the years.
Over the last five centuries, the development of modern weapons
and warfare has created an entirely new set of challenges for
practitioners in the field of military medicine. “Between Flesh
and Steel” traces the historical development of military medicine
from the Middle Ages to modern times.
Military historian Richard A. Gabriel focuses on three key
elements: the modifications in warfare and weapons whose
increased killing power radically changed the medical
challenges that battle surgeons faced in dealing with casualties,
advancements in medical techniques that increased the
effectiveness of military medical care, and changes that finally
brought about the establishment of military medical care system
in modern times.
Other topics include the rise of the military surgeon, the
invention of anaesthesia, and the emergence of such critical
disciplines as military psychiatry and bacteriology. The approach
is chronological, century by century and war by war, including
Iraq and Afghanistan, and cross-cultural in that it examines
developments in all of the major armies of the West: British,
French, Russian, German, and American. “Between Flesh and
Steel” is the most comprehensive book on the market about the
evolution of modern military medicine, and gives a true insight
into what has shaped “best practice” as seen today.
Richard A. Gabriel is a distinguished professor in the Department
of History and War Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada
and in the Department of Defence Studies at the Canadian Forces
College in Toronto. He is a former U.S. Army officer and the
author of more than forty books, including Man and Wound in
the Ancient World: A History of Military Medicine from Sumer to
the Fall of Constantinople (Potomac, 2011) and The Madness of
Alexander the Great and the Myth of Military Genius.
Hardcover: 312 pages
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press; 1 edition (1 Jan. 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1612344208
ISBN-13: 978-1612344201
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