MetaFilter posts tagged with medicine and war

Canadian War Posters

flibbertigibbet — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:29:12 -0800

Canadian War Poster Collection at McGill University. And if that doesn't strike your fancy, the list of digital collections include such time-honoured favourites as Expo '67, and the award-winner for unexpected collection, Gynaecology in Traditional Chinese Medicine. (previously)

Ibn Rushid Psychiatric Hospital

homunculus — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:32:45 -0800

Decline of an Iraqi Hospital: War Takes Toll on Baghdad Psychiatric Hospital. [Via Mind Hacks]

The larks, still bravely singing, fly / Scarce heard amid the guns below.

mek — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 21:57:18 -0800

The poppy is bitterly ironic this Remembrance Day. Borrowed from John McRae's classic In Flanders' Fields, the poppy has shifted from a symbolic meaning to the central subject of an ongoing conflict. As international intervention in Afghanistan continues, opium production has reached record-breaking heights, with this single country now producing 90% of the world's total supply (utterly dwarfing global licit supply). Meanwhile, the world suffers a global opiate shortage(pdf), Canada's heroin maintenance project is threatened by politics, and the National Review of Medicine suggests that prescription opiates are far more dangerous than the "usual suspects".

Bacterial marketing: the other Oskar Schindler

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:20:23 -0800

Upon the Nazi invasion of Poland, pediatrician Eugeniusz Łazowski and his friend Stanisław Matulewicz fabricated a fake typhus epidemic to save Polish Jews from the Nazis. Knowing that typhus-infected Jews would be summarily executed, non-Jews were injected with the harmless Proteus OX19, which would generate false positives for typhus. Anglicising his name to "Eugene Lazowski", the doctor moved to the United States after the war. He lived and worked in Chicago from 1958, and passed away in late 2006 at the vernerable age of 92, in Eugene (!), Oregon. Oddly little is written about Lazowski and Matulewicz on the web; although apparently there has been work on a documentary titled "A Private War" by a filmmaker named Ryan Bank. So feel free to add supporting links if you are aware of any.

Genetic discrimination

homunculus — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:10:54 -0800

U.S. military practices genetic discrimination in denying benefits. "Those medically discharged with genetic diseases are left without disability or retirement benefits. Some are fighting back."

One doctor's frontline diary from Kandahar

homunculus — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 22:40:28 -0800

Talk to Me Like My Father: Frontline Medicine in Afghanistan.

Sgt. Wells's New Skull

srboisvert — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:25:58 -0800

Sgt. Wells's New Skull. In the epidemic of brain injuries coming out of the war, Army neurosurgeons had never seen someone survive such a devastating wound. But Brian Wells jokes that he just left part of his head in Iraq. Someday, he says, he'll have to go back and get it.

"By early 2005, nearly one-third of the wounded soldiers admitted to the National Naval Medical Center had been colonized by the bacteria."

amberglow — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 08:04:12 -0800

Rumors were circulating at the hospital that insurgents dosed their homemade bombs with the flesh of dead animals. ---multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter, and how we brought it to Iraq ourselves. "My colleagues and I have been looking for Acinetobacter baumannii in soil samples for years, and we haven't found it," she says. "These organisms are quite rare outside of hospitals." In other news, conditions in Iraqi hospitals are so bad due to lack of even the most basic supplies they're calling it a breach of the Geneva Conventions.

"My wife's going to be pissed. She specifically gave me instructions not to get perforated..."

PenguinBukkake — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 13:52:47 -0800

Stitching Together Lives Torn Apart. In a war with no fixed front, military hospitals in Iraq are closer than ever to the places where American troops are felled — most often by roadside bombs, but also by rockets, mortars and gunshots. Many of the most seriously wounded would have died in previous wars. In Vietnam, soldiers often bled to death before reaching a hospital. Because the wounded in Iraq are evacuated so quickly, 96% of those who make it alive to the Balad and Baghdad hospitals are saved. On the battlefield, medics are better-prepared. The lowliest grunt is given specialized lifesaver training. New blood-clotting agents and improved field bandages have helped save lives.
The amputation rate in Iraq is double that of previous wars. Many soldiers face the rest of their lives without arms or legs, or with severe brain damage. The LATimes special reporting: The Lifeline (graphic photo), part one of three.

Ask Your VA Doctor About Sucrosa

digaman — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 10:41:22 -0800

Are you a Gulf War veteran still suffering from mysterious symptoms or post-combat trauma? The Veteran's Administration has just the prescription for you: "Obecalp," otherwise known as placebo. (p.s. -- They'd better start working on an Extra-Strength version for Iraq War vets.)

Pain

homunculus — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 10:51:36 -0800

The Painful Truth. "The Iraq war is a new kind of hell, with more survivors - but more maimed, shattered limbs - than ever. A revolution in battlefield medicine is helping them conquer the pain."