"Waterloo - After the Glory. Hospital Sketches and..." Topic

…. REPORTS ON THE WOUNDED AFTER THE BATTLE.

"The Battle of Waterloo was one of the most horrific actions fought during the Napoleonic Wars. There have been several studies of battlefield injuries and the field care that casualties received during the campaign of June 1815. However, what happened to the many thousands of injured men left behind as the armies marched away is rarely discussed. In June 1815, around 62,000 Allied and French wounded flooded into Brussels, Antwerp, and other towns and cities of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and swamped the medical services. These casualties were eventually cared for by a wide mix of medical personnel including hundreds of ‘Belgian' surgeons, most of whom had trained in the French Service de Santé and who assisted in the dispersal, treatment, and rehabilitation of thousands of casualties after the battle. New data concerning the fate of the thousands of Allied and some French casualties has emerged from the library of the University of Edinburgh. This has revealed a collection of over 170 wound sketches, detailed case reports, and the surgical results from five Brussels Hospitals. The sketches were carried out by Professor John Thomson, who held the first Regius Chair in Military Surgery appointed by the University of Edinburgh. Most accounts are of Allied wounded, but certainly not all. The accounts, drawings and surgical results dramatically alter our understanding of the management of military wounded in the Georgian army."
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Amicalement
Armand

Helion are publishing some great books at the moment. Fascinating to think we (in the UK) spend somewhere north of £140.00 GBP billion on a public health service that crashes after an "incident" that results in a few dozen casualties yet 200 years ago they managed to cope with 62,000 from a single day's battle?

That looks like it would be fascinating to have.

I once purchased a book which detailed the effects of bullet wounds in the Napoleonic era – I forget the title – and reading it and viewing the photographs of the shattered bones of skeletons and the drawings by surgeons of the injuries inflicted made me very uneasy about wargaming battles as serious recreations/simulations/whatever you want to call them.

It made me decide to focus on wargames which have no pretensions to be other than games of toy soldiers, such as Wells's Little Wars, with ImagiNations, rather than historical armies.

Be warned!

Glad you like it my friends!.

Amicalement
Armand

Mick Crumplin's knowledge in this area is outstanding and his ability to communicate it exemplarary. Gareth Glover's record on handling of source material second to none. Helion are an excellent publisher. I suppose it's theoretically possible otherwise, but I'd say it's odds on to be a fine book and a worthy addition to an enthusiast's bookshelf.

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand