Battle-scarred: Mortality, medical care and military welfare in the British Civil Wars

by David J. Appleby (Editor), Andrew Hopper (Editor), Erin Peters (Contributor)

Battle-scarred investigates the human costs of the British Civil Wars. Through a series of varied case studies it examines the wartime experience of disease, burial, surgery and wounds, medicine, hospitals, trauma, military welfare, widowhood, desertion, imprisonment and charity. The percentage population loss in these conflicts was far higher than that of the two World Wars, which renders the Civil Wars arguably the most unsettling experience the British people have ever undergone. The volume explores its themes from new angles, demonstrating how military history can broaden its perspective and reach out to new audiences.

264 pages, Paperback

Published July 17, 2019

Reviews

[Farah Mendlesohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a very good collection, which covers medical practice, the social treatment of soldiers, the awareness of what we would now call PTSD, and the structuring of a Parliamentarian health system and proto welfare state.

Historical fiction writers should definitely take a look at ch. 2 on controlling disease in a garrison town; chapter 3 on surgery (tip, faced with a physician or a surgeon, take the surgeon, they had a clue about how the human body was put together) and 6 on the treatment of war wounds.

Goes well with Eric Gruber von Arni's book on nursing in the wars (he has an extract in this book).