A Bibliography of Great War Medicine
This list comprises books relating to, or including, medical work in the First World War, together with a number of general books which set the scene. Its origin lies in the construction of a bibliography for a book on facial injury in the Great War, and the development of a library relating to medical services of that time to accompany the Gillies Archives at Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup. Those marked with an * are in the Gillies Library or in my own personal collection. Items marked with a + indicate that a copy of the relevant extract is in the archives. The annotations are personal comments. I would be grateful for notification of any significant omissions; in addition, details are sometimes sketchy for works taken from other bibliographies and amendments would be welcome.. Updates are posted regularly and include additions and deletions.
The Gillies Archive contains a number of contemporary papers on facial injury, many written by members of staff of the Queen’s Hospital. These are not included in this bibliography; with a few important exceptions, material that might be considered a pamphlet rather than a book has also been excluded.
In early 2002 I was contacted by Gary Mitchell of Rochester, NY, who has made a special study (and collection) of items relating to medical services from the USA. Rather than paste them into the main bibliography I have kept the entire section separate and there is therefore some duplication. A few of the entries would not qualify under my ground rules for inclusion, but are sufficiently comprehensive or important to be retained. Many have no listed author and, as researchers may well wish to search for units by number, I have retained Gary’s broad arrangement. The comments in this section are his.
1. Books related to
the Frognal estate and the origins of the Queen’s Hospital at Sidcup, Kent, UK
2. Personal accounts
which include reference to facial injury
3. Accounts by, or biographies
of, doctors, nurses, ambulancemen and others involved in the care of the wounded soldier
4. Unit records or histories
5. Medical and nursing
textbooks; texts on management & rehabilitation of disability
6. General books
7. Journals of hospitals
and other units
8. Poetry and artistic
representations of injury
9. Bibliographies, catalogues,
theses etc
10. Fiction
11. Russian material
1.
Frognal and its origins
Dr Harris' History of Kent, 1719
A
view of Frognal House with formal gardens at the time of its then owner, Roland Tryon, is one of the folio plates
in this work
*E.Hasted. The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent.
W.Bristow, Canterbury, 1798
The
standard historical survey of Kent, well illustrated with plates and a series of maps of the county hundreds. Two
editions were published; the first, folio, edition was succeeded by a 12 volume Octavo edition with revisions. Frognal
and its history is discussed
*W.H.Ireland. A New and Complete History of the County of Kent.
George Virtue, London, 1828
Contains
a plate of Frognal after the formal gardens were replaced with a “Capability Brown” landscape, drawn by George
Shepherd
*E.A.Webb, G.W.Miller, J.Beckwith. The History of Chislehurst: its church, manors and parish.
George Allen, London, 1899 (reprinted Baron Books for the Chislehurst Society, 1999)
*Frognal Estate Sale Catalogue. Strutt & Parker, 1915
Fully
illustrated with photographs of Frognal House, its grounds, and the extensive farm and residential lots into which
the estate had been divided
2. Books containing personal accounts of injury and the war
*Aitken A. Gallipoli to the Somme: Recollections of a New Zealand Infantryman
London, Oxford University Press, 1963
*Aldrich M. On the edge of the war zone.
London, Constable, 1918
*Alverdes P. The Whistlers’ Room (trans B. Creighton)
London, Martin Secker, 1929
A
story of a German hospital room occupied by men injured in the throat, who have tracheostomies and thus “whistled”
when attempting to speak.
Classic account of hospital life
Anon. The Great Advance. Tales from the Somme Battlefield told by wounded officers and men on their arrival
at Southampton from the Front.
London, Cassell, 1916
*Anon. Wounded and a Prisoner of War (by an exchanged Officer).
Edinburgh & London, William Blackwood, 1916
Hit
by a machine gun bullet at Bethancourt, this anonymous officer was captured during the retreat after Mons and imprisoned
at Würtzburg.
He was repatriated in 1915
*Armstrong WW. My first week in Flanders
London, Smith Elder & Co, 1916
A
Captain in the Northumberland Fusiliers, he was wounded at St Julien on the 25th April 1916.
The 1/7th Battalion sustained 470 casualties
that day.
+Ashurst G (ed Holmes R) My Bit. A Lancashire Fusilier at War 1914-1918.
Marlborough, The Crowood Press, 1987
Contains
a remarkable description of how the front line soldier dealt with lice
Blacker J (ed). Have you forgotten yet? The First World War memoirs of C.P.Blacker MC, GM
London, Leo Cooper, 2000
Blacker was wounded at the end of the war and describes his
journey through the medical system with remarkable calm
*Boderke D (ed). Words from the Wounded. Injured Soldiers’ view of the Trenches of the First World War
Countryside, n.d.
A
profusely illustrated book derived from two autograph books belonging to a nurse, Cissie Holden, of Blackburn,
Lancs
Calthrop DC. The Wounded French Soldier.
St Catherine Press, 1916
*Carr W. A Time to Leave the Ploughshares. A Gunner Remembers 1917-18.
London, Robert Hale, 1985
Describes
the facial injury of an artillery officer who had only arrived at the front a few hours before
*Carrington CE. Soldiers from the Wars Returning.
London, Hutchinson & Co, 1965
A
classic account from an officer; robust, with no regrets.
Very much a “Haig” man
*“Casualty”. Contemptible.
London, Heinemann, 1916
Memoir
of the retreat from Mons to the Aisne.
The author appears to have been with the 2nd
South Staffs, and was wounded in the head
*Cunningham T. 1914-1918: The Final Word
London, Stagedoor Publishing, 1993
Interviews
with survivors, all at the time in their 90s or more (and with memories somewhat dimmed as a result) but including
the account of a 104 year old lady ambulance driver
Dawson AJ. The Great Advance (Battle stories of wounded soldiers, recorded by A.J.D.)
London, Cassell, 1916
Eeman H. Captivité
Brussels, La Renaissance du Livre, 1984
Memoirs of a Belgian Ambassador.
His captivity began on October 10, 1914. From October 15, he was in Soltau prisoner camp (Germany). Sick,
he was in the camp hospital between April and July 1915. In 1917, he worked as a nurse in the hospital of the Cassel
camp; finally, sick again, he was evacuated to Switzerland, like many sick prisoners. Scarce testimony of medical
services in POW camps in Germany.
* Fraser
of Lonsdale.
My Story of St Dunstans
London, Harrap &
Co, 1961
Ian
Fraser was wounded and blinded at the age of 19 on July 23rd
1916.
Treated
at St Dunstan’s, he became its head on the death of its founder, Arthur Pearson, in 1924.
While
primarily a history of the institution it provides a moving record and personal insight into the lives of many
men blinded by war.
Freinet
C.
Touché! Souvenirs
d’un blessé de guerre
Atelier du Gué,
1996 (limited edition of 1000)
Célestin
Freinet was the founder of the French educational movement “L’Imprimerie à l’école”; this slim volume
was published to celebrate the 100th
anniversary of his birth and records his wartime experience as a casualty
Genel R. Le Journal de mon Père.
Panazol / Paris, Lavauzelle 1990:
Presented
by his son, this is the memoir of a soldier, mobilized in 1915, who fought in the infantry.
Injured
and paralyzed, he was cured by famous Prof. Babinsky (q.v.) using electric shock treatment.
He
joined the French Foreign Legion after the war and served in Morocco where he met Major Zinovi Pechkoff, son of
Maxim Gorki, and Colonel Aage (Prince of Denmark and great grandson of King Louis-Philippe of France).
*Glubb
J.
Into Battle; A Soldier's Diary of the Great War.
London, Cassell, 1978
Glubb
Pasha survived the war and his facial injury (treated at Sidcup, and described here in detail) to play a major
part in Britain’s Middle East adventures after the war, although he later fell from favour.
*Hennebois C. Aux Mains De L'allemagne. Journal d'un grand blessé
Paris, Plon-Nourrit, 1919
*Kreisler F. Four weeks in the trenches
Boston & New York, Houghton & Mifflin, 1915
Fritz Kreisler, the eminent violinist, served briefly on the
Russian Front with the Austrian army.
His brief military career ended when a Cossack charge left him
with a bayonet wound and a damaged shoulder (he was kicked by a horse).
Kreisler’s wife was a nurse
de Lamandie H. Blessé, Captif, Délivré. (Wounded, captured and delivered)
Paris, Bloud et Gay, 1916
Lehmann F. Wir von der Infanterie. Tagebuchblätter eines bayerischens Infanteristen aus fünfjähriger Front- und Lazarettzeit (We Infantry. Leaves from a diary of a Bavarian infantryman who spent 5 years on the battle front and in a military hospital)
München, Lehmanns Verlag, 1929
*Leleux C. Feuilles de route d’un ambulancier
Paris, Berger-Levrault, 1915
+MacGill P. The Great Push.
London, Caliban Books 1984
+Martin B. Poor Bloody Infantry. A Subaltern on the Western Front 1916-17.
London, John Murray, 1987
*Mathieson WD. My Grandfather’s War.
Toronto: Macmillan, 1981
*Milne JS. Neurasthenia, Shell-Shock, and a New Life
Newcastle, R Robinson & Co, 1918
A slim “self help” manual by a sufferer, carefully and precisely
written and with some reasonable advice, based on the bizarre premise that the brain has floated out of position
in the skull, disturbing the correct flow of blood
*Morelli A. (in: Marie Sklodowska Curie et la Belgique). Marie Curie sur le front belge pendant la première guerre mondiale.
Brussels, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1990
About the introduction
of X-rays on the front in Belgium by Marie Curie
*Nichols
A.
Sons of Victory.
London, Waterlow &
Sons (printers) 1950
A
base camp instructor, he was blinded in a training accident while demonstrating demolition techniques; the explosive
charge had mistakenly been fitted with an instantaneous fuse
*Nobbs
G.
Englishman Kamerad! Right of the British Line.
London, Heinemann, 1918
Nobbs
served with the London Rifle Brigade (5th Londons) and was sniped from a German strongpoint during an attack, losing
his right eye
*Tennant N. A Saturday Night Soldier's War 1913-1918.
Waddesdon, The Kylin Press, 1983
Tennant
was wounded by a shrapnel fragment which passed through his nose and lodged below the right eye
3. Accounts by, or biographies of, doctors, nurses, ambulancemen and others involved in the care of the wounded soldier
*Abraham JJ. My Balkan Log
London, Chapman & Hall, 1922
J.
Johnston Abraham’s description of his Serbian experience, illustrated with a number of photographs
*Abraham JJ. Surgeon’s Journey.
London, Heinemann 1957
Abraham
was originally posted to Serbia, and thereafter served in Egypt,
Sinai and Palestine
Alexinsky T. (trans Cannon G) With the Russian wounded
London, Fisher Unwin, 1916
*Allbee F. A Surgeon’s Fight to Rebuild Men
London, Robert Hale, 1950
Autobiography
of the famous American pioneer of bone grafting, with extensive descriptions of his experience on the Western Front,
including many observations on facial injury.
He found time to write a monograph on bone
grafts (q.v.) although this contains little of military interest
*Alport AC. The lighter side of the War
London, Hutchinson, 1934
Major
Alport RAMC served in S. Africa, on the Salonika front and finally in France
*Anderson IW. Zigzagging
Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1918
*Andrew, A. Piatt. Letters from France
Privately printed, 1916
This
limited edition describes his own early experience as an ambulance driver and comments on war and its horrors. Andrew
later became head of the American Field Service.
*Anon. Letters from a French hospital
London, Constable, 1917
Letters
from an English nurse to her uncle describing events in 1915 and 1916
Anon. The Tale of a casualty clearing station
London, Blackwood, 1917
Anon. Le Faux Miroir. Reflections from the Urgency Case Hospital.
Ash & Co, 1917
*Anon. A War Nurse's diary: sketches from a Belgian field hospital
New York, Macmillan 1918
An
illustrated account of nursing from the outbreak of war to the author’s departure from Belgium in October 1915
Anon. Happy Though Wounded: the book of the 3rd London Hospital
London, Country Life 1917
*Anon. “Mademoiselle Miss”. Letters from a American girl serving with the rank of Lieutenant in a French Army hospital at the front
Boston, WA Butterfield, 1916
Anon. Nursing adventures: a F.A.N.Y. in France
London, Heinemann, 1917
*Anon. (Sergeant-Major, RAMC). With the RAMC in Egypt.
London, Cassell, 1918
*Anon. The Edith Cavell Nurse from Massachusetts. Boulogne-The Somme 1916-1917
London, WA Butterfield, 1917
Following a memorial service for Edith Cavell in Boston, USA in December 1915 funds were raised to send a nurse to serve with the BEF in France. Miss Alice Fitzgerald, who had been head of the operating room at Bellevue Hospital, New York, was appointed to the post. This book contains an account of her experience, with a résumé of the trial of Edith Cavell and the involvement of the US government through the American Legation in seeking her release
Anon. “Doc”. Letters from Somewhere (by a captain in the R.A.M.C., from France and Egypt)
London, Heath Cranton, 1918
Anon. Two years’ Captivity in German East Africa. Being the personal experiences of Surgeon E.C.H., R.N.
London, Hutchinson, 1918
Anon. War Nurse. The True Story of a Woman who Lived, Loved and Suffered on the Western Front.
New York & Chicago, AL Burt Company, 1930
Illustrated with a series of stills from an “All-Talking Picture”
made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Anon. Kriegs-Erinnerungen eines Korps-Stabs-Apothekers (War memories of a pharmacist officer)
Mittenwald, n.d (c.1920)
Anon. Livre jubilaire publie en l'honneur du docteur Paul Derache, Lieutenant-general medecin, par ses élèves et ses collaborateurs de Cabour et de Beveren-sur-Yser en témoignage de reconnaissance et d'attachement
Bruxelles,
1933
Paul Derache was, with Antoine Depage, the most famous Belgian doctor working near the battlefield during WW1.
*A Red Cross Pro. The Wards in Wartime
Edinburgh, Wm Blackwood & Sons, 1916
Amusing
account of a provincial convalescent hospital
Arnold G. Sister Anne! Sister Anne! Stories of hospital work in France during the war
Toronto: 1919
*Ashford BK. A Soldier in Science
London, Routledge, 1934
An
American pathologist on the Western Front, 1917-18.
*Askew C, Askew A. The Stricken Land. Serbia as we saw it
London, Eveleigh Nash, 1916
The authors were writers attached to the 1st British Field Hospital. The Red Cross bibliography indicates that they were “outspoken in denunciation of the allies’ mismanagement of aid”
*Bagnold E. Diary without dates
New York, Luce, 1918
*Balfour, Lady F. Dr Elsie Inglis
London, Hodder& Stoughton, n.d.
Biography
of the leading light of the Scottish Womens Hospitals
Barclay F.L.G.
In hoc vince: the story of a Red Cross Flag
Putnam, 1915
*Barclay HA. Doctor in France 1917-1919: The Diary of Harold Barclay, Lieutenant-Colonel, American
Expeditionary Forces
New York, privately printed 1923.
Bayly HW. Triple challenge; or, War, whirligigs and windmills, a doctor's memoirs
London, Hutchinson, 1935
Beadnell C Marsh. A Naval Medical Officer’s impressions of a visit to the Trenches
Bale & Danielssohn, 1917
Beauchamp P. Fanny goes to war
London, Murray 1919
*Beckmann M. Briefe im Kriege.
München, A. Langen – G. Müller, 1955
War letters of the
well- known expressionist painter Max Beckmann who was a stretcher bearer in WWI
*Begg RC. Surgery on Trestles: a Saga of Suffering and Triumph
Norwich, Jarrold, 1967
Describes
the Middle East theatre
Bennett AH. English Medical Women: glimpses of their work in peace and war
London, Pitman, 1914
Benson SC. 'Back from hell'
Chicago, McClurg, 1918
Bertrand de Laflotte D. Dans les Flandres. Dunkerque, Zuydcoote, Houten, Furnes, Coxyde, Adinkerke,
La Panne. Notes d'un volontaire de la Croix-Rouge, 1914-1915
Paris, Barcelone, Bloud / Gay, 1917
*Binyon L. For Dauntless France.
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1918
Laurence
Binyon served with an Ambulance Unit behind the French front
Bizard
L. Souvenirs d'un médecin de la Prefecture de police
et des prisons de Paris (1914-1918)
Paris, Grasset, 1925
*Black EW. Hospital heroes
New York, Scribner, 1919
*Blackham Col RJ. Scalpel, Sword and Stretcher.
London, Sampson Low, Marston and Co Ltd.,
*Borden, Mary. The Forbidden Zone.
London, William Heinemann, 1929
A
moving account of nursing experiences
*Boschi G (ed.). La Guerra e le Arti Sanitarie. Collezione Italiana di diari, memorie, studi e documenti per servire alla storia della Guerra del mondo, diretta da Angelo Gatti (War and the sanitary arts. Collection of Italian diaries, memoirs, studies and documents relating to the Great War)
Milan, Montadori. 1931
*Botcharsky S, Pier F. They Knew How To Die. Being a Narrative of the Personal Experiences of a Red Cross
Sister on the Russian Front
London, Peter Davies, 1931
Front
line hospital experiences
Boubée, l’Abbé Joseph. Parmi les blesses allemands (Among the wounded in Belgium in the first five months of war)
Plon-Nourrit, 1916
*Bowerman, GE Jr. (Ed. Carnes MC). The Compensations of War: The Diary of an Ambulance driver during the Great War
Austin, University of Texas Press, 1983
Bowerman
served as an ambulance driver in France and Germany for a year and a half. This book is based on the recopied and
amplified version of his diary which he prepared in 1919
*Boyd W. With a field ambulance at Ypres. Being letters written March 7-August 15, 1915.
Toronto, Musson Book Company, 1916
*Boyd-Orr, 1st baron. As I recall
London, Macgibbon & Kee, 1966
R.A.M.C.
and Naval service.
Some interesting observations on courts-martial
for desertion; he suggests that many medical and other officers would use any excuse to find mitigating circumstances
Boylston HD. 'Sister': the war diary of a nurse
New York, Washburn, 1927
*Bradford M. A hospital letter writer in France
London, Methuen, 1920
The wife of Sir John Rose Bradford, Consulting Physician to
the BEF, May Bradford sat by innumerable bedsides in Boulogne and Etaples writing letters to dictation for wounded
soldiers. It
is clear from her writing that the post of letter-writer (not one that is generally known about) entailed the provision
of essential, if amateur, psychology services to the sick and injured
Breitner B. Unvervundet Gefangen - Aus meinem Sibirischen Tagebuch.
(A Prisoner, but not wounded. From my Siberian Diary)
Rikola Verlag, 1921
An
account of a doctor’s experience as a POW in Siberia dealing with epidemic disease
*Britnieva, M. One woman's story
London, Barker, 1934
English
born, Mary Britnieva served as a nurse on the Russian front where her husband was a medical officer. After
the war he had several brushes with the G.P.U. before being arrested in 1928; two years later she was told that
he had “disappeared”
Bruce C. Humour in tragedy, hospital life behind three Fronts
London, Skeffington, 1918
*Bradley AO. Back of the front in France.
London, Butterfield, 1918
*Bryan JH. Ambulance 464.
New York, Macmillan, 1918
Julian
Bryan served with SSU 12
Bucher WE. Surgeon Errant
Los Angeles, Angeles Press, 1935.
Description
of the 3rd American Red Cross Mission in Siberia 1918-1919.
*Buswell L. With the American Ambulance Field Service in France.
Privately Printed, Cambridge, MA. 1915.
*Buswell L. Ambulance No. 10: personal letters from the Front
London, Constable, 1917
Leslie
Buswell served with SSU 2
*Butler HA. Overseas Sketches. Being a Journal of My Experiences in Service With the American Red Cross in France
Youngstown (OH), Privately Printed 1921
Privately printed memoirs in an edition of 300 of an American's service with the Red Cross in World War I.
Cahill AF (ed). Between the Lines:
Letters and Diaries from Elsie Inglis's Russian Unit
Bishop Auckland, Pentland Press, 1999
Calthorp DC. The Wounded French soldier
London, St Catherine Press, 1916
Campbell P. Back of the Front: experiences of a nurse
London, Newnes 1915
*Carossa H. A Roumanian Diary (Translated from the German by Agnes Neil Scott)
NY, Alfred A. Knopf 1930
In his “War Books”,
Cyril Falls wrote: “The writer of this diary, the greater part of which is concerned with the campaign against
Rumania, was a battalion medical officer...the descriptions of scenery,of the people of Transylvania, of scenes
at an advanced dressing-station during a battle, of the
writer's own thoughts and dreams, are masterly. It may be added
that the translation is quite exceptionally good.”
*Catchpool TC. On two fronts.
London, Headley, 1918
Corder
Catchpool was a conscientious objector
*Cator D. In a French military hospital
London, Longmans, 1915
A
whimsical observation of work in a French hospital, seen through English eyes.
There is scarce a good word for French professionals;
the filth of the wards appears to pass unnoticed except by the fastidious English
Caujole P. Les Tribulations d'une Ambulance Française en Perse
Author's self publishing, 1959.
A
French medical mission in the massacres in Caucasus and High-Euphrates, May 1917 - February 1919)
*Clarke-Kennedy A.E. Edith Cavell
London, Faber & Faber, 1965.
When
the war broke out Edith Cavell was matron of Dr. Depages's Training School for Nurses in Brussels' Barkendalle
Medical Institute; the Germans allowed her to continue her work and the Institute became a Red Cross Hospital at
which German and Allied wounded were treated.
She was executed on 12th October 1915 for aiding
the escape of Belgian, French and British troops.
*Clarke RG. The Evolution of a Casualty Clearing Station on the Western Front.
Bristol, Bristol Medico-Chirugical Society 1936
Transcript
of a paper presented to the Society at their Annual Meeting in 1936
Cobbold L. In Blue and Gray. Sketches of life in Red
Cross Hospitals
Cambridge, 1917
*Cope Z. Almroth Wright, Founder of Modern Vaccine Therapy
London, Nelson, 1966.
Wright
was instrumental in developing ant-typhoid vaccine
*Corbet
E.
Red Cross in Serbia
1915-1919.
A personal diary of
experiences
Banbury, Cheney &
Sons, 1964
Nursing
experiences from Salonika to Serbia
*Coyle ER. Ambulancing on the French front
New York: Britton 1918
Ibid. Field ambulance sketches
London, Lane, 1919
Coyle
served with the Norton-Harjes Ambulance
Crémieux J. Souvenirs d'une Infirmière
Paris, Rouff (Coll. Patrie #52), 1918
Reminiscences of a French nurse at the beginning of WW1 (August
1914 - May 1915).
*Crichton-Harris
A.
Seventeen Letters to
Tatham.
A WW1 surgeon in East
Africa
Toronto,
Keneggy West, 2001
The
only account I have seen of a medical man in this theatre, based on letters written by the author’s grandfather
Temple Harris to his brother in India
*de Croy, Princesse M. Souvenirs, 1914-1918
Paris, Plon (Coll. Le Martyre des Pays envahis), 1933
A nursing memoir of a Belgian princess on the North Front.
The same author appears also to have produced a 1914-15 memoir
with a Flemish spelling (de Croij, Princesse M.
Souvenirs 1914-1915; Paris, Plon, 1944)
*Culpin
M.
Psychoneuroses of War
and Peace
Cambridge, University
Press, 1920
*Cummings
EE.
The Enormous Room.
London, Jonathan Cape, 1928