Dr Leo van Bergen's Books

Before My Helpless Sight

Suffering, Dying and Military Medicine on the Western Front, 1914–1918

By: Dr Leo van Bergen

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Before My Helpless Sight

Suffering, Dying and Military Medicine on the Western Front, 1914–1918

By: Dr Leo van Bergen

Despite the numerous vicious conflicts that scarred the twentieth century, the horrors of the Western Front continue to exercise a particularly strong hold on the modern imagination. The unprecedented scale and mechanization of the war changed forever the way suffering and dying were perceived and challenged notions of what the nations could reasonably expect of their military. Examining experiences of the Western Front, this book looks at the life of a soldier from the moment he marched into battle until he was buried. In five chapters - Battle, Body, Mind, Aid, Death - it describes and analyzes the physical and mental hardship of the men who fought on a front that stretched from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border. Beginning with a broad description of the war it then analyzes the medical aid the Tommies, Bonhommes and Frontschweine received - or all too often did not receive - revealing how this aid was often given for military and political rather than humanitarian reasons (getting the men back to the front or munitions factory and trying to spare the state as many war-pensions as possible). It concludes with a chapter on the many ways death presented itself on or around the battlefield, and sets out in detail the problems that arise when more people are killed than can possibly be buried properly. In contrast to most books in the field this study does not focus on one single issue - such as venereal disease, plastic surgery, shell-shock or the military medical service - but takes a broad view on wounds and illnesses across both sides of the conflict. Drawing on British, French, German, Belgian and Dutch sources it shows the consequences of modern warfare on the human individuals caught up in it, and the way it influences our thinking on 'humanitarian' activities.

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Page Count

546

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1472454839

ISBN 13

9781472454836

Before My Helpless Sight

Suffering, Dying and Military Medicine on the Western Front, 1914–1918

By: Dr Leo van Bergen

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Before My Helpless Sight

Suffering, Dying and Military Medicine on the Western Front, 1914–1918

By: Dr Leo van Bergen

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Page Count

546

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1472454839

ISBN 13

9781472454836

Nursing before Nightingale, 1815–1899

By: Dr Judith Godden,Ms Carol Helmstadter

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Nursing before Nightingale, 1815–1899

By: Dr Judith Godden,Ms Carol Helmstadter

Nursing Before Nightingale is a study of the transformation of nursing in England from the beginning of the nineteenth century until the emergence of the Nightingale nurse as the standard model in the 1890s. From the nineteenth century on historians have considered Florence Nightingale, with her training school established at St. Thomas's Hospital in 1860, the founder of modern nursing. This book investigates two major earlier reforms in nursing: a doctor-driven reform which came to be called the 'ward system,' and the reforms of the Anglican Sisters, known as the 'central system' of nursing. Rather than being the beginning of nursing reform, Nightingale nursing was the culmination of these two earlier reforms. Recent historians of nursing have ascribed the nineteenth century makeover of nursing to two causes: medicalization by hospital doctors who found the old independent nurse practitioners a threat, and the inculcation of middle class values by philanthropists. By contrast this volume demonstrates that the real cause of nursing reform was the development of the new scientific medicine which emphasized supportive therapeutics and, as a result, became heavily dependent on skilled nursing for successful implementation of these treatments. The pre-industrial work ethic of the old hospital nurses could not meet the requirements of the new medicine. Recruitment and retention of working-class persons was also extremely difficult because nursing in the early nineteenth century formed the lowest rung of the occupation of domestic service and was a job of last resort. It was still more difficult to recruit educated women or 'ladies.' There were intricate interactions between the requirements of clinical nursing under hospital medicine's new regime on the one hand, and on the other, the contemporary ideal of a lady, class structure, economic realities, the reformation of manners, and the detrimental impact of violent denominational controversies in a very religious society. This book, therefore, will be of great value to those studying the history of medicine, labour, religion, gender studies and the rise of a respectable society in the nineteenth century.

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Page Count

254

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

140948260X

ISBN 13

9781409482604

British Generalship during the Great War

The Military Career of Sir Henry Horne (1861–1929)

By: Dr Simon Robbins

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British Generalship during the Great War

The Military Career of Sir Henry Horne (1861–1929)

By: Dr Simon Robbins

Following the career of one relatively unknown First World War general, Lord Horne, this book adds to the growing literature that challenges long-held assumptions that the First World War was a senseless bloodbath conducted by unimaginative and incompetent generals. Instead it demonstrates that men like Horne developed new tactics and techniques to deal with the novel problems of trench warfare and in so doing seeks to re-establish the image of the British generals and explain the reasons for the failures of 1915–16 and the successes of 1917–18 and how this remarkable change in performance was achieved by a much maligned group of senior officers. Horne's important career and remarkable character sheds light not only on the major battles in which he was involved; the progress of the war; his relationships with his staff and other senior officers; the novel problems of trench warfare; the assimilation of new weapons, tactics and training methods; and the difficulties posed by the German defences, but also on the attitudes and professionalism of a senior British commander serving on the Western Front. Horne's career thus provides a vehicle for studying the performance of the British Army in the first quarter of the Twentieth Century. It also gives an important insight into the attitudes, ethos and professionalism of the officer corps which led that army to victory on the Western Front, exposing not only its flaws but also its many strengths. This study consequently provides a judgment not only on Horne as a personality, innovator and general of great importance but also on his contemporaries who served with the British Armies in South Africa and France during an era which saw a revolution in military affairs giving birth to a Modern Style of Warfare which still prevails to this day.

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Page Count

356

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1409481018

ISBN 13

9781409481010

Book's by Dr Leo van Bergen

Before My Helpless Sight

Before My Helpless Sight

Before My Helpless Sight

Before My Helpless Sight

Nursing before Nightingale, 1815–1899

Nursing before Nightingale, 1815–1899

British Generalship during the Great War

British Generalship during the Great War

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