Medicine, Conflict and Survival
ISSN: 1362-3699 (Print) 1743-9396 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fmcs20
First World War nursing: new perspectives Leo van Bergen To cite this article: Leo van Bergen (2015) First World War nursing: new perspectives, Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 31:2, 131-132, DOI: 10.1080/13623699.2015.1019024 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13623699.2015.1019024
Published online: 24 Mar 2015.
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Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fmcs20 Download by: [University of Pennsylvania]
Date: 08 November 2015, At: 04:01
Medicine, Conflict and Survival
131
For anyone interested in this war, or in warfare, this small book, through its fictional form, gives some interesting insights into those terrible years that cannot be easily conveyed through factual studies.
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 04:01 08 November 2015
Michael Pountney Medicine Conflict and Survival, London michael@thetopflat.com © 2015, Michael Pountney http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13623699.2015.1014453
First World War nursing: new perspectives, edited by Allison S. Fell and Christine E. Hallett, New York/London, Routledge, 2013, 226 pp., £80.46 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-415-83205-2 The history of medicine, and certainly the history of medicine in war, is dominated by male doctors. This fact alone completely justifies the publication of First World War Nursing, edited by Allison S. Fell, who has published widely on women and war, and Christine E. Hallett, author of a standard work on war nursing: Containing Trauma: Nursing Work in the First World War. First World War Nursing consists of 10 separate articles, nine of them divided into three chapters: ‘national identities’, ‘professional identities’ and ‘nurse as witness’. In national identities, the equivalents and differences between the views of nurses on nursing in the 1914–1918 war are central. How was the perception of nursing influenced by national values? It is suggested that in France, the perception was partly shaped by tales told at the end of the nineteenth century about heroic nursing during the Franco-Prussian war. The three articles on ‘professional identities’ focus on the distinction between professional nurses and volunteer ‘amateur’ nurses well known in Britain as VADs. In the third part, phrases such as ‘naked body’, ‘male patients’, ‘female nurses’ and ‘pain and anguish’ come up time and again. How was the work of nursing influenced by the fact that it was females with their bodies intact looking after men with their bodies broken and vice versa. Were they still men? And if they were not, could the nurses truly be women? In an afterword, dealing with remembrance, Allison Fell goes into the history of the changing societal view on First World War nursing; a view, in which the ‘Testament of Youth’ view of the often intellectual, almost always high-class and more or less pacifistic amateur nurse became dominant in spite of the fact that the amateurs owed their knowledge and training to the professionals. Resentment and tension were the result. It is one of the many merits of this book that it dispels the myth of a one-sided nursing view of war and of the hardships nurses had to see and endure. This takes me to the first of two tiny criticisms. Mary Borden, Ellen La Motte and Vera Britain are always the three most prominent names in books
132
Book reviews
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 04:01 08 November 2015
on First World War nursing, and it is true for this one too. One of the reasons is that it focuses solely on the allied forces: France, America, Australia and of course, Britain. But was there nobody who could write about, for instance, German nurses such as Adrienne Thomas or Henriette Riemann? Showing a Central European perspective would have enriched the book enormously. The second critique is on layout. There are simply too many words on the page and some of the articles went on and on without any headings. It did not make reading the book easy, which is a shame considering the enormously interesting and valuable content. Leo van Bergen Royal Netherlands Institute for South East Asia and Caribbean Studies The Netherlands [email protected] © 2015, Leo van Bergen http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13623699.2015.1019024
The politics of invisibility: public knowledge about radiation health effects after Chernobyl, by Olga Kuchinskaya, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2014, 264 pp., £19.95 (hardcover), ISBN 978-0-2620-2769-4, e-ISBN 978-0-2623-2540-0
Author: Are people in Selo concerned about radiation at all? Local Resident: We are not paid anything for this radiation. The only thing is free food for children at school. (31)
What does a free lunch have to do with radiation? At first glance, this Belarusian resident appears not to have answered the question they were asked at all. Yet, in the case of Chernobyl, free lunches have a great deal to do with radiation. In fact, for someone living in ‘Selo’, this remains a perfectly satisfactory answer. The Politics of Invisibility ventures to explain why. Kuchinskaya performs a sociological analysis of the political power balances that have shaped the visibility and invisibility of radiation health effects within the Belarusian public sphere following Chernobyl. Drawing from interviews with experts (scientists, government officials, physicians and members of international organizations) and Belarusian laypeople, as well as media coverage of Chernobyl and institutional reports, Kuchinskaya identifies a distinct composition and trajectory to Chernobyl’s (in)visibility within public discourse. The argument begins by elucidating the complex nature of visibility. The way hazards are articulated shapes the way individuals and communities experience and understand their effects (Chapter 1), including those living with hazards on a daily basis. In the case of Belarusian laypeople, ‘administrative practices meant to mitigate various effects of radioactive contamination …
ISSN: 1362-3699 (Print) 1743-9396 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fmcs20
First World War nursing: new perspectives Leo van Bergen To cite this article: Leo van Bergen (2015) First World War nursing: new perspectives, Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 31:2, 131-132, DOI: 10.1080/13623699.2015.1019024 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13623699.2015.1019024
Published online: 24 Mar 2015.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 28
View related articles
View Crossmark data
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fmcs20 Download by: [University of Pennsylvania]
Date: 08 November 2015, At: 04:01
Medicine, Conflict and Survival
131
For anyone interested in this war, or in warfare, this small book, through its fictional form, gives some interesting insights into those terrible years that cannot be easily conveyed through factual studies.
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 04:01 08 November 2015
Michael Pountney Medicine Conflict and Survival, London michael@thetopflat.com © 2015, Michael Pountney http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13623699.2015.1014453
First World War nursing: new perspectives, edited by Allison S. Fell and Christine E. Hallett, New York/London, Routledge, 2013, 226 pp., £80.46 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-415-83205-2 The history of medicine, and certainly the history of medicine in war, is dominated by male doctors. This fact alone completely justifies the publication of First World War Nursing, edited by Allison S. Fell, who has published widely on women and war, and Christine E. Hallett, author of a standard work on war nursing: Containing Trauma: Nursing Work in the First World War. First World War Nursing consists of 10 separate articles, nine of them divided into three chapters: ‘national identities’, ‘professional identities’ and ‘nurse as witness’. In national identities, the equivalents and differences between the views of nurses on nursing in the 1914–1918 war are central. How was the perception of nursing influenced by national values? It is suggested that in France, the perception was partly shaped by tales told at the end of the nineteenth century about heroic nursing during the Franco-Prussian war. The three articles on ‘professional identities’ focus on the distinction between professional nurses and volunteer ‘amateur’ nurses well known in Britain as VADs. In the third part, phrases such as ‘naked body’, ‘male patients’, ‘female nurses’ and ‘pain and anguish’ come up time and again. How was the work of nursing influenced by the fact that it was females with their bodies intact looking after men with their bodies broken and vice versa. Were they still men? And if they were not, could the nurses truly be women? In an afterword, dealing with remembrance, Allison Fell goes into the history of the changing societal view on First World War nursing; a view, in which the ‘Testament of Youth’ view of the often intellectual, almost always high-class and more or less pacifistic amateur nurse became dominant in spite of the fact that the amateurs owed their knowledge and training to the professionals. Resentment and tension were the result. It is one of the many merits of this book that it dispels the myth of a one-sided nursing view of war and of the hardships nurses had to see and endure. This takes me to the first of two tiny criticisms. Mary Borden, Ellen La Motte and Vera Britain are always the three most prominent names in books
132
Book reviews
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 04:01 08 November 2015
on First World War nursing, and it is true for this one too. One of the reasons is that it focuses solely on the allied forces: France, America, Australia and of course, Britain. But was there nobody who could write about, for instance, German nurses such as Adrienne Thomas or Henriette Riemann? Showing a Central European perspective would have enriched the book enormously. The second critique is on layout. There are simply too many words on the page and some of the articles went on and on without any headings. It did not make reading the book easy, which is a shame considering the enormously interesting and valuable content. Leo van Bergen Royal Netherlands Institute for South East Asia and Caribbean Studies The Netherlands [email protected] © 2015, Leo van Bergen http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13623699.2015.1019024
The politics of invisibility: public knowledge about radiation health effects after Chernobyl, by Olga Kuchinskaya, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2014, 264 pp., £19.95 (hardcover), ISBN 978-0-2620-2769-4, e-ISBN 978-0-2623-2540-0
Author: Are people in Selo concerned about radiation at all? Local Resident: We are not paid anything for this radiation. The only thing is free food for children at school. (31)
What does a free lunch have to do with radiation? At first glance, this Belarusian resident appears not to have answered the question they were asked at all. Yet, in the case of Chernobyl, free lunches have a great deal to do with radiation. In fact, for someone living in ‘Selo’, this remains a perfectly satisfactory answer. The Politics of Invisibility ventures to explain why. Kuchinskaya performs a sociological analysis of the political power balances that have shaped the visibility and invisibility of radiation health effects within the Belarusian public sphere following Chernobyl. Drawing from interviews with experts (scientists, government officials, physicians and members of international organizations) and Belarusian laypeople, as well as media coverage of Chernobyl and institutional reports, Kuchinskaya identifies a distinct composition and trajectory to Chernobyl’s (in)visibility within public discourse. The argument begins by elucidating the complex nature of visibility. The way hazards are articulated shapes the way individuals and communities experience and understand their effects (Chapter 1), including those living with hazards on a daily basis. In the case of Belarusian laypeople, ‘administrative practices meant to mitigate various effects of radioactive contamination …
