Between Flesh and Steel: A History of Military Medicine from the Middle Ages to the War in Afghanistan

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 systems in modern times. Other topics include the rise of the military surgeon, the invention of anesthesia, 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.