Jean Dominique Larrey and his recognition in Mexico.

The figure of Jean Dominique Larrey, military surgeon who participated in the Napoleonic wars, is analyzed. The objectives of the study are to highlight their contributions, including the creation of ambulances that allowed the injured to be given prompt assistance. Also note the post-mortem recognition that Larrey had in Mexico through an academic group founded by the surgeon Francisco Montes de Oca y Saucedo. The facts cited show the progress of military surgery, its institutionalization and professionalization as well as the communication and updating of knowledge in one and another continent.

Se analiza la figura de Jean Dominique Larrey, cirujano militar que participó en las guerras napoleónicas. Los objetivos de estudio consisten en destacar sus aportaciones, entre ellas la creación de las ambulancias que permitieron dar una pronta asistencia al herido. Asimismo, señalar el reconocimiento post mortem que Larrey tuvo en México a través de una agrupación académica fundada por el cirujano Francisco Montes de Oca y Saucedo. Los hechos citados muestran el progreso de la cirugía militar, su institucionalización y profesionalización, así como la comunicación y la actualización de saberes en uno y otro continente.

Pittsburgh's Freedom House Ambulance Service: The Origins of Emergency Medical Services and the Politics of Race and Health.

This manuscript explores the history of the Freedom House Enterprises Ambulance Service, a social and medical experiment that trained "unemployable" black citizens during the late 1960s and early 1970s to provide then state of the art prehospital care. Through archives, newspapers, personal correspondence, university memoranda, and the medical literature, this paper explores the comparable, yet different roles of the program's two leaders, Drs. Peter Safar and Nancy Caroline. Despite its success in demonstrating national standards for paramedic training and equipment, the program ended abruptly in 1975. And though Pittsburgh's city administration cited economic constraints for its fledgling support of Freedom House, black and majority newspapers and citizens alike understood the city's diminishing support of the program in racial terms. The paper discusses Safar and Caroline's well-intentioned efforts in developing this novel program, while confronting the racial, social, and structural constraints on the program and the limits of racial liberalism.

[The treatment of wounds during World War I].

The First World War was a huge tragedy for mankind, but, paradoxically, it represented a source of significant progress in a broad series of human activities, including medicine, since it forced physicians to improve their knowledge in the treatment of a large number of wounded soldiers. The use of heavy artillery and machine guns, as well as chemical warfare, caused very serious and life-threatening lesions and wounds. The most frequent causes of death were not mainly related to gunshot wounds, but rather to fractures, tetanus and septic complications of infectious diseases. In the first part of this article, we describe the surgical procedures and medical therapies carried out by Italian physicians during the First World War, with the aim of treating wounded soldiers in this pre-antibiotic era. Antibacterial solutions, such as those of Dakin-Carrel and sodium hypochlorite and boric acid, the tincture of iodine as well as the surgical and dressing approaches and techniques used to remove pus from wounds, such as ignipuncture and thermocautery or lamellar drainage are reported in detail. In the second part of the paper, the organization of the Italian military hospitals network, the systems and tools useful to transport wounded soldiers both in the front lines and in the rear is amply discussed. In addition, the number of soldiers enrolling, and those dying, wounded or missing during the Great War on the Italian front is estimated.

Somewhere in France (9 April 17): a centenary review of medical arrangements at Vimy Ridge.

SUMMARY: In April 1917, medical units of the 4 divisions of the Canadian Corps combined for the first time in support of a single action, the assault upon Vimy Ridge. Detailed planning, infrastructure development, information dissemination and rehearsal were features of preparations by the combat arms and medical elements of the Canadian Forces. Extraordinary coordination resulted in the rapid rescue and evacuation by Canadian medical services of 8000 casualties over 4 days. Characteristics of today's military medical services are evident in the work of the Canadian Army Medical Corps 100 years ago.

[A.S. Puchkov as an organizer of the Moscow station of emergency medical care].

The article is devoted to the 125th anniversary of outstanding Russian physician, health administrator, honored physician Aleksander Sergeyevitch Putchkov (1887-1952). During thirty years, from 1923, he continuously headed the Moscow station of emergency medical care based at the Sheremetoyevskiy hospital, nowadays the N.V. Sklifosofskiy research institute of emergency care.

Transporting Lazarus: physicians, the state, and the creation of the modern paramedic and ambulance, 1955-73.

In 1966, morticians provided 50 percent of ambulance services in the United States; today advanced care by trained medical professionals en route to the hospital is considered a basic standard of care. The creation of emergency medical services (EMS) provides an important case study for how physicians acting as "experts" helped to shape the creation of federal policy in the post-World War II years. This paper challenges a narrative of the development of EMS that has emphasized technology, individual agency, and the role of fortuitous chance as the prime movers of EMS development. Instead it argues that a key factor in EMS development was the National Academy of Science-National Research Council's Committee on Emergency Medical Services. Using the examples of paramedic training and ambulance design, this paper argues that members of the committee utilized complex mix of local experimentation and professional networking to suggest directions for the federal government's efforts to create national standards and guidelines for EMS. The NAS-NRC Committee retained a prominent role in EMS development until the passage of the Emergency Medical Services Systems Act of 1973, when federal interest in EMS largely shifted from prehospital transport to an emphasis on in hospital care and regional trauma systems planning.

Ambulance services in London and Great Britain from 1860 until today: a glimpse of history gleaned mainly from the pages of contemporary journals.

Little has been published on the subject of civil ambulance services and their development from the mid-19th century in the UK until modern times. There is limited secondary literature available which provides useful background information on the subject and most organisations may give brief histories of their early days but these sources lack historical adequacy in terms of detail. This article shows part of the uncertain path which the history followed towards the service which we enjoy today. From the pages of the British Medical Journal and the Lancet and Hansard, the battle to set up the service is followed and an indication of the drivers towards change over the period is revealed in the attitudes expressed. In particular, the two World Wars are seen to be the stepwise stimuli to providing a necessary service to the British population where the will to achieve this had hitherto been lacking at a parliamentary level. The history of the London Ambulance Service is chosen because more is written about it in these journals but services in other British cities and the USA are mentioned since they played a part in influencing change.

"Separate, but almost equal": the Army's Negro medical field units in World War II.

Before World War II, the Army had no African American medical units and no plans on how to utilize African American personnel. A first plan to sideline blacks into menial support positions was implemented but then overruled in the middle of the war. Separate units were formed, which performed some support functions, but also focused on preventive medicine work--mainly, insect control. Other duties included cross-loading litter patients in the evacuation chain, a laborious but morale-boosting job for which some units received commendations. Several ambulance companies were organized, performing solidly. In the face of official disapprobation and disinterest in African Americans serving, the men of these units sought to contribute to the war effort and took pride in doing their best.