HR965-7-SP-CO:
War and Medicine
PLEASE NOTE: This module is inactive. Visit the Module Directory to view modules and variants offered during the current academic year.
2023/24
Philosophical, Historical and Interdisciplinary Studies (School of)
Colchester Campus
Spring
Postgraduate: Level 7
Inactive
Monday 15 January 2024
Friday 22 March 2024
20
25 September 2023
Requisites for this module
(none)
(none)
(none)
(none)
(none)
Both medicine and the military are social phenomena. From the middle of the 19th century, medicine came to play an increasingly central role in the emergence of modern mass and industrialised warfare. In addition to the maintenance of discipline and morale, medicine also provided administrative and technical support to what became known as the 'total' wars in the 20th century.
This module examines the relationship between medicine and the military effectiveness in the 'modernisation' of societies during the 19th century and 20th century. It asks to what extent medicine contributed to the 'rationalisation' of military management?
The aim of this module is:
- To integrate modern warfare and medicine into the familiar terrain of historical studies and methods and into pre-existing models of society, culture, or power.
By the end of this module, students will be expected to be able to:
- Gained an understanding of the process in which medicine and health intervention, from disease eradication to health care, and hygienic rituals as well as health propaganda, contributed to the ‘rationalisation’ of military management. This ‘rationalisation’ process mirrored the new disciplinary regime in civil society in the 19th and 20th century.
- To make an informed analysis of how industrial capitalism and associated developments in the public sphere accelerated the increasing medicalisation of both the military and the civilian society.
General Reading List
- Max Weber, 'The Technological Advantages of Bureaucratic Organisation', in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. by H. Gerth and C. W. Mills (Routledge, 1970).
- Roger Cooter, Harrison Mark and Steven Sturdy, War, Medicine and Modernity (Sutton Publishing, 1998)(eds.), Medicine and Modern Warfare (Rodopi, 1999).
This module will be delivered via:
- One 2-hour seminar per week.
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Gerth, H.H., Mills, C.W. and Turner, B.S. (2009)
From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Abingdon: Routledge. Available at:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/universityofessex-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1111791.
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Cooter, R., Sturdy, S. and Harrison, M. (1998) War, Medicine and Modernity. Stroud: The History Press Ltd.
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Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine (2004c)
Medicine and modern warfare. Second edition. Edited by R. Cooter, M. Harrison, and S. Sturdy. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004333277.
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Gilman, S.L. (2018) Stand Up Straight! London: Reaktion Books.
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Stepan, N. (1978b) ‘The Interplay Between Socio-Economic Factors and Medical Science: Yellow Fever Research, Cuba and the United States’,
Social Studies of Science, 8(4). Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1177/030631277800800401.
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Grant, S.-M. (no date) ‘“Mortal in this season”: Union Surgeons and the Narrative of Medical Modernisation in the American Civil War’,
Social History of Medicine, 27(4), pp. 689–707. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hku010.
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Harari, R. (no date) ‘Medicalised Battlefields: The Evolution of Military Medical Care and the “Medicine ”in Japan’’,
Social History of Medicine, 33(4). Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkz042.
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Seaman, L.L. (1968)
The real triumph of Japan, the conquest of the silent foe. D. Appleton. Available at:
https://archive.org/details/realtriumphjapa00seamgoog/page/n15.
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Harrison, M. (2010b)
The Medical War: British Military Medicine in the First World War. Oxford University Press. Available at:
https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199575824.001.0001.
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Harrison, M. (2018) ‘War, Epidemics, and Empire: British Military Government in the Middle East, 1914-18’,
Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research [Preprint], (Special publication number 18). Available at:
https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:4b7f809c-fc31-4531-af0f-b0a3eab591a0.
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Carden-Coyne, A. (2014)
Politics of Wounds: Military Patients and Medical Power in the First World War. Oxford University Press, USA. Available at:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=z3DDBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false.
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‘Special Issue: Shell-Shock’ (no date)
Journal of Contemporary History, 35(1). Available at:
https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/jcha/35/1.
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Farley, J. (2003) Bilharzia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Packard, R.M. (2007) The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
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Harrison, M. (no date) ‘“Medicine and the Culture of Command: the Case of Malaria Control in the British Army during the two World Wars”’,
Medical History, 40(4), pp. 437–452. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0025727300061688.
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Zhou, X. (2020b)
The people’s health: health intervention and delivery in Mao's China, 1949-1983. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Available at:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/universityofessex-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6221205.
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Virchow, R.C. (2006) ‘Report on the typhus epidemic in upper Silesia’,
American Journal of Public Health, 96(12), pp. 2102–2105. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.96.12.2102.
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George Rosen (1947) ‘What is social medicine? A genetic analysis of the concept’,
Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 21, pp. 674–733. Available at:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/44441189?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents.
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Grant, J.B. (1948) ‘International Trends in Health Care’,
American Journal of Public Health and the Nations Health, 38(3), pp. 381–397. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.38.3.381.
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Weindling, P. (1995) ‘Social medicine at the League of Nations Health Organisation and the International Labour Office compared’, in
International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918–1939. Cambridge University Press, pp. 134–153. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511599606.009.
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Litsios, S. (no date) ‘Revisiting Bandoeng’,
Social Medicine, 8(3), pp. 113–128. Available at:
https://www.socialmedicine.info/index.php/socialmedicine/article/view/748.
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Kristin Luker (1998) ‘Sex, Social Hygiene, and the State: The Double-Edged Sword of Social Reform’,
Theory and Society, 27(5), pp. 601–634. Available at:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/657941.
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Rafferty, A.M. (1995) ‘Internationalising nursing education during the interwar period’, in
International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918–1939. Cambridge University Press, pp. 266–282. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511599606.015.
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Cooter, R., Harrison, M. and Sturdy, S. (1999) ‘“War always brings it on”: War, STDs, the military, and the civilian population in Britain, 1850-1950’, in
Medicine and Modern Warfare. BRILL, pp. 205–223. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004333277_009.
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Harrison, M. (1995) ‘The British Army and the problem of venereal disease in France and Egypt during the First World War’,
Medical History, 39(2), pp. 133–158. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300059810.
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Harrison, M. (1999) ‘Sex and the Citizen Soldiers: Health, Morals and Discipline in the British Army during the Second World War’, in
Medicine and Modern Warfare. Brill/Rodopi, pp. 225–249. Available at:
https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004333277/B9789004333277-s010.xml.
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Bingham, A. (2005) ‘"The British Popular Press and Venereal Disease during the Second World War.”’,
The Historical Journal, 48(4), pp. 1055–1076. Available at:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4091648.
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Harrison, M. (2004)
Medicine and Victory: British Military Medicine in the Second World War. Oxford University Press, USA. Available at:
https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=191280.
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Kuntz, D. and Bachrach, S.D. (2004) ‘German Eugenics’, in Deadly Medicine. New edition. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, pp. 15–40.
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Rabinbach, A. and Gilman, S.L. (2013)
The Third Reich Sourcebook. Berkeley: University of California Press. Available at:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/universityofessex-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1214640.
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Tsuneishi Keiichi (2005) ‘“Unit 731 and the Japanese Imperial Army”s Biological Warfare Program’’,
Asia Pacific Journal, 3(11), pp. 1–9. Available at:
https://apjjf.org/-Tsuneishi-Keiichi/2194/article.html.
The above list is indicative of the essential reading for the course.
The library makes provision for all reading list items, with digital provision where possible, and these resources are shared between students.
Further reading can be obtained from this module's
reading list.
Assessment items, weightings and deadlines
| Coursework / exam |
Description |
Deadline |
Coursework weighting |
Exam format definitions
- Remote, open book: Your exam will take place remotely via an online learning platform. You may refer to any physical or electronic materials during the exam.
- In-person, open book: Your exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer to any physical materials such as paper study notes or a textbook during the exam. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, open book (restricted): The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer only to specific physical materials such as a named textbook during the exam. Permitted materials will be specified by your department. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, closed book: The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may not refer to any physical materials or electronic devices during the exam. There may be times when a paper dictionary,
for example, may be permitted in an otherwise closed book exam. Any exceptions will be specified by your department.
Your department will provide further guidance before your exams.
Overall assessment
Reassessment
Module supervisor and teaching staff
Dr Xun Zhou, email: xzhoug@essex.ac.uk.
Dr Xun Zhou
Senior Student Administrator, Department of History, Telephone: 01206 872190
Yes
No
No
Prof Rohan McWilliam
Anglia Ruskin University
professor of Modern Hritish History
Available via Moodle
Of 12 hours, 12 (100%) hours available to students:
0 hours not recorded due to service coverage or fault;
0 hours not recorded due to opt-out by lecturer(s), module, or event type.
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