This book examines the work that nurses of many differing nations undertook during the Crimean War, the Boer War, the Spanish Civil War, both World Wars and the Korean War.

It makes an excellent and timely contribution to the growing discipline of nursing wartime work. In its exploration of multiple nursing roles during the wars, it considers the responsiveness of nursing work, as crisis scenarios gave rise to improvisation and the - sometimes quite dramatic - breaking of practice boundaries. The originality of the text lies not only in the breadth of wartime practices considered, but also the international scope of both the contributors and the nurses they consider. It will therefore appeal to academics and students in the history of nursing and war, nursing work and the history of medicine and war from across the globe.

Reviews

Over the past two centuries, nursing care has been central to many wars, including the Crimean, Boer and Korean wars, the Spanish Civil War and both world wars. This beautifully written book explores these conflicts from a nursing perspective. University of Manchester lecturer in nursing Jane Brooks and professor of nursing history Christine Hallett writes in a way that allows readers on all levels, from student to academic, to understand the many extended roles taken on by nurses during the various wars. The authors draw on a rich array of fascinating resources, with touching accounts of how the nursing profession responded and evolved during times of crisis and sheer desperation. This book is easy to follow, informative and interesting for nurses and general readers, actively encouraging the reader to explore further. It is a significant and substantial contribution to the growing collection of wartime nursing reads, and will appeal to those interested in healthcare ethics as well as nursing history. Emma Vincent. The Queen's Nursing Institute

Awards

2015

Mary Roberts Award

Introduction: The practice of nursing and the exigencies of war - Jane Brooks and Christine E Hallett

Part I: Gentlemen's Wars
1. Class, gender and professional expertise: British military nursing in the Crimean War - Carol Helmstadter
2. American Nightingales: The influence of Florence Nightingale on Southern nurses during the American Civil War - Barbara Maling
3. Traversing the veldt with 'Tommy Atkins': The clinical challenges of nursing typhoid patients during the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) - Charlotte Dale

Part II: Industrial War
4. 'This fiendish mode of warfare': Nursing the victims of gas poisoning in the First World War - Christine E Hallett
5. Health, healing and harmony: Invalid cookery and feeding by Australian nurses in the Middle East in World War I - Kirsty Harris
6. Eyewitnesses to revolution: Canadian military nurses at Petrograd, 1915-17 - Cynthia Toman
7. The impact of the First World War on asylum and voluntary hospital nurses' work and health - Deborah Palmer

Part III: Technological Warfare
8. Blood and guts: Nursing with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39 - Angela Jackson
9. 'Those maggots did a wonderful job': The nurses' role in wound management in civilian hospitals during the Second World War - David Justham
10. 'The nurse stoops down... for me': Nursing the liberated persons at Bergen-Belsen - Jane Brooks
11. The Norwegian Mobile Army Surgical Hospital: Nursing at the front - Jan-Thore Lockertsen, Ashild Fause, Christine E Hallett & Jane Brooks
12. Moving forward: Australian flight nurses in the Korean War - Maxine Dahl

Bibliography
Index

Editors

Jane Brooks is a Lecturer in Nursing at the University of Manchester and Deputy Director of the UK Centre for the History of Nursing and Midwifery

Christine Hallett is Professor of Nursing History at the University of Manchester