Lifesavers and Body Snatchers: Medical Care and the Struggle for Survival in the Great War

by Tim Cook

*WINNER OF THE 2023 OTTAWA BOOK AWARD*
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 TEMPLER MEDAL FOR BEST BOOK*

From Canada’s top war historian, a definitive medical history of the Great War, illuminating how the carnage of modern battle gave birth to revolutionary life-saving innovations. It brings to light shocking revelations of the ways the brutality of combat and the necessity of agonizing battlefield decisions led to unimaginable strain for men and women of medicine who fought to save the lives of soldiers.

Medical care in almost all armies during the Great War, and especially in the Canadian medical services, was sophisticated and constantly evolving. Vastly more wounded soldiers were saved than lost. Doctors and surgeons prevented disease from decimating armies, confronted ghastly wounds from chemical weap-ons, remade shattered bodies, and struggled to ease soldiers’ battle-haunted minds. After the war, the hard lessons learned by doctors and nurses were brought back to Canada. A new Department of Health created guidelines in the aftermath of the 1918–1919 influ-enza pandemic, which had killed 55,000 Canadians and millions around the world. In a grim irony, the fight to improve civilian health was furthered by the most destructive war up to that point in human history.

But medical advances were not the only thing brought back from Lifesavers and Body Snatchers exposes the disturbing story of the harvesting of human body parts in medical units behind the lines. Tim Cook has spent over a decade investigating the history of Canadian medical doctors removing the body parts of slain soldiers and transporting their brains, lungs, bones, and other organs to the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) in London, England. Almost 800 individual body parts were removed from the dead and sent to London, where they were stored, treated, and presented in exhibition galleries. After being exhibited there, the body parts were displayed in Canada. This uncovered history has never been told before and is part of the hidden legacy of the medical war.

Based on deep archival research and unpublished letters of soldiers and medical personnel, Lifesavers and Body Snatchers is a powerful narrative, told in Cook’s literary style, which reveals how the medical services supported the soldiers at the front and forged a profound legacy in shaping Canadian public health in the decades that followed.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, World War I, Canada, War, Audiobook, Military Fiction

552 pages, Hardcover

Published September 13, 2022

About the author

Tim Cook (1971 in Kingston - October 26, 2025) was a Canadian military historian and author.
Dr. Tim Cook was the Chief Historian & Director of Research at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, and a part-time history professor at Carleton University. He has also published several books about the military history of Canada during World War I.

Dr. Cook is a member of the Order of Canada.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Cook...

Reviews

[KB · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't even know this was coming out, so that was a nice surprise. I'll start off by saying that I really enjoy Tim Cook's work. Lifesavers and Body Snatchers is the sixth book of his that I've read, and I'd say it's up there with my favourites. I think At the Sharp End and Shock Troops, his two volumes about Canada in the First World War, and Vimy would probably be my top three, but this one was also a great read.

Lifesavers, like all of Cook's work, I find, is extremely accessible to any reader. And that's certainly one of the things I love about picking up one of his books. As a Canadian, I still think the British, Americans, Russians or Germans tend to be the main focal point when learning or reading about the two World Wars. But Tim Cook has been publishing quite prolifically, and his focus is always on the Canadians. That, coupled with the ease of reading his books (though certainly at no expense in terms of quality of research), means that this history is becoming more accessible and easily available for us.

Cook's new book is focused on medical care during the First World War, with a first-time depiction of the harvesting of soldiers' organs and other body parts - without consent, of course - for medical study. Lifesavers follows the course of the war, but most chapters tend to be thematic.

The development of medical care and the First World War were inextricably linked, but the contradictions of this were not lost on soldiers and medical personnel: "'On the one hand it is science straining every nerve to accomplish man's destruction, on the other hand it is science working overtime to save his life.'" Cook details not only the scientific developments and advancements in terms of care, but also what it was like working in military hospitals as a doctor or nurse, or on the frontlines as a stretcher bearer.

Cook states that the mere presence of a medical officer could boost the men's morale. But it could also be a difficult relationship. Something Cook repeatedly stresses is that the role of medical personnel was often very complex: they were not only there to care for the troops, but also to be military enforcers. It was their role to heal the men, and then ultimately send them back to the front. They also faced the struggle of which men to save: "'one abdomen, one laparotomy, means a whole hour devoted to an altogether uncertain result; it means, at most, half a chance of saving one man. An hour given to three other severe wounds means you will save three at least.'"

The collecting of soldiers' body parts is a topic gone back to a few times throughout the book. Why and how was this done, and what happened to these specimens during and after the war are the main focal points. For Cook it seems to ultimately come down to what he states "Military medical authorities saw... as a dark legacy of the war that was at odds with the commemorative impulse of grieving Canadians who were memorializing the fallen." Indeed.

Overall Lifesavers is another great piece of work from Tim Cook. It's just as informative and accessible as anything I've previously read from him. Looking forward to what he publishes next.

[Erich Ong · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I say I was born in the wrong generation I mean that I should have been a WW1 surgeon at Passchendaele.

[Dasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a lot to praise in this book. Cook weaves together a massive amount of literature and this will become an easy recommendation for those wanting a medical history of Canada and WWI. Yet, the most interesting part of this book, and what seems to be the greatest addition this book makes to the literature, is buried within the over 450 pages of writing. Indeed, the "body snatchers" aspect is interesting and brings up questions of medical consent in the professionalizing medical bodies, "othering" soldiers' bodies (those that were damaged beyond repair), and the contradiction of narrative that argued for the christlike and sacred sacrifice of Canadian soldiers. These points are surely touched upon (sort of), but they aren't deeply explored or greatly analyzed and they get lost as chapters jump around to various other topics, often not touching on the organ/body-part harvesting aspect at all. Nonetheless, it's an important, and worthwhile read, although if you're familiar with the literature you'll be skimming most of it to get to the more substantial parts.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on Canadian involvement in WWI. Despite the difficult subject matter, it’s a very readable book. Lots of fascinating details about the challenge of providing medical care in the field. Only issue was the last two chapters. Seemed to just drag a bit.

[Marshall Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whoaaaa boy. What a book. Few books of this substance (Medical Care in the Great War) have left me levitating in a coffee shop after I turn the final page but Dr. Cook’s second last book certainly did.

I don’t know where to begin. The book walks the reader through several of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces’ key engagements throughout the Great War: namely Second Ypres (1915), Somme (Newfoundlanders, 1916) and Vimy (1917) with an emphasis on the incredible casualty rate of soldiers in the first ever industrial war mankind saw. Poisonous gas, advanced artillery, machine guns, disease - death dominates the life of every soldier on the Western Front and medicine/medical care has to advance at Godspeed to keep up with the causality rate. Cook eloquently details the scramble to save lives and keep armies’ morale high with healthcare and lifesaving action in a conflict that killed over 9,000,000 soldiers.

SPOILER ALERT: One key theme the book covers primarily in the final third is how the Canadian Army Medical Corps begins to harvest organ, bones, and bodily matter to study and put on display at museums. This type of warfare is so unknown to the public at the time that the idea of shrapnel coming off a shell at hundreds of miles per hour and separating the legs from the torso of a grown man in the fraction of a second is unfathomable. (It still is.) Cook gets into the morality of doctors dissecting deceased soldiers in the latter part of the book and it’s incredibly uncomfortable. 66,000 Canadian soldiers, mirroring a Christlike sacrifice, gave their lives in service of their friends, family, nation and King — nearly 800 of them were dissected post mortem, without consent, and without approval from their next of kin back home. Their bodies were used on display and for study. They gave their all in life and were dismembered in death.

Cook summarizes in the final pages of the book: “selecting pieces of slain soldiers to be removed by surgical knife, harvested for knowledge, stored in formaldehyde, and sent back to London and then to Montreal, all without loved ones’ knowledge and with no record of this action being included in the soldiers’ personnel files…This story has been buried in the archives for more than 100 years. Now it has been told. These Canadian soldiers deserves a better fate after death.” (467/68)

Lest We Forget

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

A readable, well-structured account of the Canadian Army Medical Corps during World War One. Closing material includes lessons learned and how they were applied to postwar Canada.

Having read some of the source material myself, I think that the author has done a great job distilling technical and medical details into something the average reader can appreciate.

Some of the illustrations were not reproduced very well. For example, on page 29, the text on the other side of the original bleeds through (meaning you can see it in reverse). This can be eliminated by placing a black piece of paper behind the original while scanning. On page 390, there's a heavy matrix effect that can reduced by a number of workarounds such as descreening.

[Chelsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tim Cook is a well-known WW1 historian, but Lifesavers and Body Snatcher is at best a surface level examination of the medical side of WW1. Long, winding, with lots of unnecessary repetition, and tangents that could have been removed (at least 100 pages could be cut if it was edited more succinctly). I would not say this is one of Cooks better works.

In his thesis Cook admits that he’s not doing a deep dive into the medical advancements in WW1 and honestly, others have done it and done it much better. Medical history is not Cook’s strength as seen in the 3 chapters he dedicated to trying to stir up controversy over the collection of samples that medical officials collected during the war.

Cook fluctuates wildly in these chapters, as if trying to reconcile this idea with himself. Though this practice was ethically grey at best – and one of the many reasons why we have stringent medical and medical research ethics today – the collection of samples as teaching aides goes back centuries in medical history. This was widely know as seen through the laws that were enacted where the bodies of those accused of murder and sent to be hanged were then donated to medical science. Let alone strict laws with the dealings of the dead and large fines / prison sentences for those caught exhuming corpses.

Medical instruction with a three-dimensional object was the norm at the time and really the only way, along with autopsy, for understanding how the human body works and how it could go wrong. Preserving samples was the only way to “see” prior to the advancements in diagnostic imaging that we have today. Seeing a healthy or diseased organ preserved in its three-dimensional form is much easier to understand then a drawing that is flat and may be inaccurate. As a surgeon I know once lamented, “No body ever looks like the books once you open them up.”

Cook struggles with reconciling the scientific method of medical research, which involves collecting samples right away. When else could the lungs of a gassed victim be collected for teaching and instruction purposes if they weren’t right away? Its not like they could exhume a body expecting soft tissue to still be there. The wording of the text in these chapters becomes derisive and the tone shaming.

Cook’s shaming isn’t limited to those who collected tissue and bone samples. He chastises everyone from politicians to military members and those who were asked to write histories and accounts. Or those involved in the delay of a Military Museum. Cook loses sight that his hindsight is 20/20, and that yes. Things get lost to the annals of time. In these later chapters you can feel the heavy weight of his abashing finger waggle of disappointment to the people involved in theses projects in the past.

I can only assume Cook finds the business of medical research ghoulish and without a doubt it was and is an ethical mine field. One that continued well into the 20th and even the 21st century. Lest the modern reader forget, when you leave a tissue sample behind in a doctor’s office, clinic, or surgical setting, it is no longer your property. This is something you agree to when you sign a surgical consent form. That clinic or hospital is responsible for the proper disposal of tissue samples. But samples can also be used for medical research or instruction. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks details this very well.

To give Cook his due, he is very good at detailing how an injured front-line soldier got medical help during the war. He is very good at explaining the different battles and how the various medical officers both embedded in units and in the CAMC helped the front-line infantry as best as they could. That said, I don’t think he has the stomach to detail the horrific injuries this war caused, and the lengths medical professionals went to in order to help. He falls back at times on medical jargon or sweeps off into purplish praising prose (I lost track of the number of times “brave” was written) when he returns to his beloved infantry men.

Sure, in Cook’s words the story of body snatching has been told. But not by a deft understanding hand.

[Chloe Alby-Koop · Rating 4 out of 5]

⚠️ Content warnings for this book include graphic descriptions of battle injuries, wartime violence, descriptions of chemical warfare, descriptions of medical procedures including amputations, discussion of suicide and self-harm amongst soldiers, and occasional use of profanity.

A really fascinating compilation of stories and information on Canadian medical achievements and practices during WWI. Have tried to find something similarly comprehensive on WW2 but haven’t succeeded on that front yet — here’s my plug to Tim Cook to make that his next project!

Very accessible read in terms of language used, and understandably graphic in terms of the grit and gore of battle.

Covered topics including recruitment of medical officers, management of venereal disease, sanitary policies and practices, the preservation and use of biological specimens taken from deceased soldiers for teaching purposes, the realities of chemical warfare, and treatment of medical maladies from trench foot and shell shock to traumatic amputation and body lice, and everything in between. Also discussed medical politics of the time, and made comparisons between Canada’s disease prevention practices (vaccinations, education campaigns, etc) and those of nations like England, France and Germany.

What I found most interesting was the logistics of moving casualties from the front to the clearing stations and hospitals. Really helped me to understand what an incredible feat it would have been to move gravely wounded soldiers across large distances to receive medical care.

[Mark Adkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book by Canadian military historian, Tim Cook is all about the Canadian Army Medical Corp during the First World War. It depicts their role during the war and the great accomplishments they made in keeping soldiers alive; that is the “Lifesavers” part of the title. He also talks about an almost forgotten even during the war, that of harvesting body parts to be used for research and instructional purposes, that is where the “Body Snatchers” part of the title comes from.

I have been a fan of all of Tim Cook’s previous books and this book is no exception. I found it to be an interesting book, and it illuminated an aspect of the First World War that I never knew about, that of the harvesting of human body parts by medical personnel. The story is told chronologically starting from when war was declared and continuing to the armistice and post-war years. Each chapter had a theme which exposed the various aspects of medical practice the medical community dealt with; these included the supremely important but often overlooked battle against diseases using the latest in preventative medicine techniques.

If you are not overly familiar with the First World War or the Canadian Expeditionary Force that Canada sent overseas don’t worry, the author does a great job of explaining the overall context of what is happening.

I recommend this book to anyone that is interested in either Military History or Medicine.

[Scott Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Audiobook) Solid overview of the role of medical personnel during the Great War. Written from the Canadian perspective, much of what was discussed, from the fight to maintain sanitation to dealing with the wounded on the battlefield and on the home front could apply to most of the combatant, even if their focus wasn't as extensive in this work as it was for the Canadian forces. For all the brutality of the fighting and the death caused (conflict, war wounds and influenza), it is remarkable that more people didn't die in the fighting, especially with the advancements in medicine and public health care in the conflicts leading up to the war.

Medical matters and health care/sanitation don't get a lot of run studies of warfare, but they play a major role in conflicts, especially when such things are absent. While quite detailed, the audiobook was solid in conveying information without getting too boring or dragging out the details. The rating is the same regardless of the format. Worth the read.

[Lars · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Really 3.5 stars*

”…the war was increasingly medicalized but the profession of medicine, in turn, was militarized.”

Cook is incredible at writing plainly. He doesn’t suffer from what a lot of scholars do which is an unscratchable itch to be haughty and convoluted. Where he falls is brevity. The same few points are rehashed so many times it’s hard to stay interested since all you’re thinking is “haven’t I read this bit already??”

There is so much great information in here and such important work, it’s unfortunate it gets bogged down by unneeded repetition which made it feel like a word count needed to be hit more than history needed to be recorded. As well, the random grammatical errors throughout really surprised me. Maybe it’s my own biases, but a non-fiction book having (obvious) grammar mistakes is much more vexing and disappointing than when a piece of fiction has them.

That being said, I think anyone interested in medical history and/or WWI should definitely pick this book up and give it a go. There’s definitely valuable information in here that any history dabbler to seasoned pro can gain some valuable insights from.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Canadian History in all its guts and glory. WWI and things are very different then. Volunteers are plentiful but shocking numbers are impoverished and unfit for service. Tuberculosis rages unchecked and inoculations as disease( Typhus) prevention are yet to be widespread. Logistics are basic and a medical core is to pull from civilians and universities to reach effective strength. So much is yet to be accomplished. Even Dr. John McCrea is yet to serve and write his famous poem.
An important and thorough look at the sacrifices of that immensely bloody war from the view of the medical challenges and successes achieved among the carnage.
It took me a long time to get through this gritty book, but it is well worth the effort.
It gave me a view of my grandfather's time, including the influenza pandemic, that I just had the scantest knowledge of - despite being well read on the WWII.
One fact: 40,000+ dead in six months with the influenza after all those years of war? Such tremendous loss. After already losing so many, and so many injured survivors.

[Andrew Hawkes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tim Cook is an absolute workhorse of a military historian who has published an incredible number of books that are both accessible and informative. Lifesavers and Body Snatchers is no different in quality from his other books, although it obviously has a much more in depth focus on the Canadian Army Medical Corps and much less of a focus on the rest of the army in combat or the home front during the war. Cook's writing here is particularly interesting due to his focus on the advancements in medicine made during the war and the practical impact that improved techniques and technology had on wounded soldiers, as well as the macabre practice of pathological specimen gathering during the war which was previously lost in the historical record. Overall it is a great introduction to the Canadian Army Medical Corps during the Great War and a myriad of interesting topics like the evolution of casualty clearing stations, blood transfusions during the war, and the impact of weapons like gas and high explosive shells on soldiers' bodies.

[Mark Edlund · Rating 4 out of 5]

Non-fiction - a very interesting account of the creation of the Canadian Medical Army Corps in the First World War. There are some graphic descriptions of the injuries suffered by the Canadian soldiers inflicted by either shell, bullet or gas. Cook does get a bit bogged down with numbers (casualties, surgeries, deaths). The lack of antibiotics really increased the death rate. He discusses the effects of PTSD on the front line soldiers and the problem the doctors had in returning these damaged boys back to the front. Sexually transmitted diseases ran rampant through the trenches which the leaders did not want to address properly.
The account of the bodies of dead soldiers being "harvested" by the medical team for pathological display and museums was disturbing. McGill had over 700 body parts (wet and dry) on display in their medical museum.
Canadian references - it is about the CMAC.
Pharmacy references - so we have doctors, nurses, stretcher bearers, veterinarians, dentists, physiotherapists. Not ONE mention of a pharmacist.

[Joshua Oakley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was drawn to this book as I enjoy reading about military history as well as medicine. The first half of the book I felt as though I couldn't put it down and I wanted to know more and more of how Dr.s nurses and the whole medical team were able to save so many soldiers lives, but after a while it just kept repeating itself and I became disinterested. The whole body snatchers aspect of the book is scattered throughout and hard to follow and with little detail until the end of the book(which was nice to finally read about).
Hearing what happened to all the specimens gathered was quite saddening and painful as these men and women's bodies who's organs were harvested would have been better suited to be left alone and buried with them.

[Paul Wiper · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s a reason Tim Cook is Canada’s best First World War historian. He connects the medical care of Canadian soldiers through the full chronology and aftermath of the war. There are a few theme-specific chapters but usually the themes are connected with the experience of the battlefield and treatment at notable Canadian battle sites. What makes Cook so good at what he does is how he uses the voices of the soldiers and medical personnel to tell the story in such a compelling and comprehensive way. Shock Troops is still his best, but this exceeds some of his other more recent work.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book as a Goodreads Giveaway ARC

I got my dad to read this book because he is big fan of war history. He really enjoyed this book and found the information was presented in an interesting way making it a complelling read. The one criticism he had was that the way it was structured, with each chapter representing a different battle, there was some repetition of information as many of the battles followed the same general methods for medical care. But he did really like it and would recommend it for anyone who is interested in the subject.

[Barbara Brydges · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5. Cook is Canada’s most important historian of Canada’s military history, and this knowledge comes to bear in his account of the medical services that supported Canadian troops during the terrible casualties of World War I. He also brings to light unknown information about how some bodies were collected, without any kind of formal permission, for a future medical museum that never came to pass. Well written, and I appreciated his many quotes from both medical personnel and soldiers, but also a little too repetitive and detailed to make a fully engaging read.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

So normally I wouldn't be interested in a book about war. But the medical portion interested me so much, I decided to give it a try and I'm glad I did! So much interesting information about blood transfusions, vaccinations and 'shell shock'. It was sad to see how some opinions about vaccinations and epidemics haven't changed much in 100 plus years.

[Michelle Cornish · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating history of Canadian medicine and military procedures during WWI. Not for those with a weak stomach. As you might expect, there are many descriptions of war wounds and medical procedures. Truly remarkable what veterans endured and survived!

[Michael Brochu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Must Read for Students of the Great War

An incredible look into the role of the MO's and nurses who served Canada during the Great War. Not an easy read but very informative. I had trouble putting it down.

[Shelly Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting bit of Canadian history bout thw medical side of the war effort

[Steve Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shocking to discover biological samples taken from dead soldiers of the war. Read more to find out why. Extremely well researched and written by Mr. Cook as usual. He makes history come alive.

[Peter Hawkeye · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful, emotional read that I personally think should be required reading for any politician; b/Before sending brave souls off to a war.

[Adèle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible... I wish he would have spoken about battlefields cleanup but that's the only thing missing from this book. 100% recommend this book!!

[Jedediah Gorham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, well written, and eye opening.