{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.020972644376899698, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0024316109422492403, 'mean_word_length': 4.92972972972973, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Medicine in first world war Europe: soldiers, medics, pacifists

This is an excellent and thought-provoking addition to the historiography of medicine during the First World War. From the beginning, Fiona Reid asks us to grapple with one of the big questions which remains about the war: despite the trauma and carnage, did medicine and science benefit from the cataclysm of the trenches? If they did, was the sacrifice worth it? Reid impressively situates the understanding of military medicine during the war in the history of war and medical progress, challenging the reader to consider the event as part of a longer history, rather than in isolation. Reid deals with a wide range of topics across the armies of Britain, France and Germany, drawing together areas of medicine which are often considered independently of one another. Many works have considered the history of shell-shock, medical logistics, wounds, treatment and pacifism in isolation, rather than offering an interconnected picture of medicine during the war. There is now, perhaps, little to add on some of these topics. However, Reid has given space to areas which are sometimes overlooked, such as soldiers’ self-medication with drugs and alcohol and how pacifists viewed their roles as medics. Reid has largely drawn from the corpus of published memoirs and diaries; a few more archival sources would have offered a broader spectrum of experience amongst soldiers. This not to say that the book has not been well researched or that the evidence is in any way questionable. But the writings of many of the soldiers are already well known and well used, being the most accessible and articulate sources to have come out of the war. Some more obscure sources from private soldiers and diaries, rather than retrospective sources, would have helped give a broader understanding to many of the themes. Furthermore, Reid’s focus on Ernst Junger’s Storm of Steel (1924) and Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1928) as the examples for the German experience of the war is slightly disappointing, as they do not give the depth of insight into the experience of the German Army as is present for the British and French. That said, this book does provide the basis for these topics to be taken up by other scholars and expanded upon in the same vein, with Reid already offering a detailed survey of published material. Reid covers the numerous well-known issues soldiers faced in the trenches, such as lice and trench foot. She situates these topics alongside the logistics of military medicine in the chapter ‘From the Trench to the Hospital’. Interestingly, rather than discussing just the military logistics concerning the wounded, she focuses here on the pressures of dealing with the vast numbers of diseased soldiers, and includes the varied and nuanced experiences of soldiers who found themselves suffering from illness. She suggests there were those who coveted respite from the trenches by any means necessary and those who were embarrassed by such conditions. Reid, in this chapter, as with the others, expertly blends the personal experience within the wider picture of war, capturing both the humour and pathos of the medical services on the frontline. Throughout, she intermingles the traumatic