British Military and Naval Medicine, 1600-1830

This collection of essays on British military and naval medicine during the formative period of the British imperial state provides a valuable overview of recent work, covering key themes. These include the development of professionalisation, standardisation of organisation and administration, and the development of tropical medicine. As the editor, Geoffrey Hudson, explains at the outset, the volume demonstrates that Roger Cooter's call for more work on the relationship between war and modern medicine has been answered (p. 7). Hudson's introduction provides a helpful historiographical survey, along with excerpts from Smollett and Sterne to remind us of the common complaints regarding British naval and military medicine during the early modern period. This is followed by J. D. Alsop's useful overview of the literature of British maritime and imperial medicine, before more detailed examinations of imperial aspects. Paul Kopperman examines the military medical structure in North America and the West Indies during the later eighteenth century, while Mark Harrison lucidly details the complexity of medical practice and its surrounding debates in the armies of British India, 1750–1830. In the domestic context, Eric Gruber von Arni describes the details of military nursing, 1642–60, building on his Justice to the Maimed Soldier: Nursing, Medical Care and Welfare for Sick and Wounded Soldiers and their Families during the English Civil Wars and Interregnum, 1642–1660 (2001).