Wounded - From Battlefield to Blighty, 1914-1918
Author(s): Emily Mayhew
Wounded traces the journey made by a casualty from the battlefield to a hospital in Britain. It is a story told through the testimony of those who cared for him - stretcher bearers and medical officers, surgeons and chaplains, orderlies and nurses - from the aid post in the trenches to the casualty clearing station and the ambulance train back to Blighty. We feel the calloused hands of the stretcher-bearers; we see the bloody dressings and bandages; we smell the nauseating gangrene and, at London's stations, the gas clinging to the uniforms of the men arriving home. There are the unspeakable injuries: the officer with a hole in his torso so big the doctor can see the sky beyond him; a man with no legs holding a hymnbook for a man with no arms. Together, the experiences in Wounded encapsulate what it was to fight, live and die for four long years at the Western Front. The first comprehensive account of medical care at the Western Front, Wounded is a homage to the courageous and determined men and women who saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
General Information
- :
- : Random House
- : The Bodley Head
- : 0.567
- : 01 September 2013
- : United Kingdom
- : 01 October 2013
- : books
Other Specifications
- : Emily Mayhew
- : hardback with dustjacket
- : 288
- : illustrations (black and white), maps (black and white)
More About The Product
A homage to the courage and determination of the men and women who cared for - and saved the lives of - the hundreds of thousands of British soldiers who were wounded at the Western Front.
Shortlisted for Wellcome Trust Book Prize 2014.
"Powerful... Does justice to the experience of the wounded and the dedication of the doctors, nurses, orderlies, stretcher bearers and volunteers who cared for them, by weaving together the testimonies of individuals into a moving history" -- A W Purdue Times Higher Education "Moving" -- Tony Rennell Daily Mail "An original and absorbing account... [Mayhew] has a marvellous eye for quirky and horrifying detail... Absolutely compelling" -- Peter Parker Times Literary Supplement "Mayhew deftly describes such daily horrors as shattered jaws and severed arteries, filthy uniforms and decay. What takes the book beyond the standard accounts of the trenches, however, is its depiction of how such terrible circumstances forced people to respond in remarkable ways" -- Victoria Segal Guardian "Wounded is a powerful and descriptive read, and through it I found a greater understanding of what it was to be part of that war" -- Sarah Mullally Church Times
Emily Mayhew is a Research Associate at Imperial College and an Examiner at the Imperial College School of Medicine. She is also a consultant and lecturer to various museums including the Wellcome Collection, the Imperial War Museum and the Royal College of Surgeons. Her first book, The Reconstruction of Warriors, was published in 2004.
