Battlefield medicine
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Battlefield medicine is the treatment of soldiers in or near an area of combat. Medicine has been greatly advanced by procedures that were developed in order to treat the wounds inflicted during combat. With the advent of advanced procedures and medical technology, even polytrauma can be survivable in modern wars.
Among the notable medical advances made on the battlefield:
- The practice of Triage, by Dominique Jean Larrey during the Napoleonic Wars.
- Advances in surgery - especially amputation, during the Napoleonic Wars and first world war on the battlefield of the Somme.
- The first practical method for transporting blood, by Norman Bethune during the Spanish Civil War.
- Ambulances or dedicated vehicles for the purpose of carrying injured persons.
- The extension of emergency medicine to prehospital settings through the use of emergency medical technicians.
- The establishment of fully equipped and mobile field hospitals such as the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital and its successor, the Combat Support Hospital.
- The use of helicopters as ambulances, or MEDEVACs.
The term "Meatball surgery" is a term used in battlefield medicine to refer to surgery that is meant to be performed rapidly to stabilize the patient as quickly as possible.
See also
- Military medicine
- Medical corps
- Combat medic
- History of medicine
- Polytrauma
- Timeline of medicine and medical technology
External links
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Acknowledgement and Attribution Regarding Sources of Content
Some of the initial content on this page may be incorporated in part from copyleft sources in the public domain including wikis such as Wikipedia and AskDrWiki. Drug information for patients came from the The National Library of Medicine. Infectious disease information may have come from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Differential Diagnoses are drawn from clinicians as well as an amalgamation of 3 sources: 1.The Disease Database; 2. Kahan, Scott, Smith, Ellen G. In A Page: Signs and Symptoms. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2004:3; 3. Sailer, Christian, Wasner, Susanne. Differential Diagnosis Pocket. Hermosa Beach, CA: Borm Bruckmeir Publishing LLC, 2002:7 .
