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Sick and injured children, like combatants wounded by shot and shell in war, are disproportionately represented in the tallies of both man-made and national disasters. Paediatricians have a particularly proud heritage of military service, a nexus dating in Australia from the early 19th century. This paper traces this link between service to children in peacetime and the care of servicemen, women and children in times of war and disaster. The extraordinary record of Australian 'paediatric' doctors who also served in the Gallipoli Campaign (1915) is documented as an illustration of this duality. Paediatricians who serve in the Defence Reserves and in civilian non-government organisations which respond to disasters and civil wars have special credentials in their advocacy for the protection of children enmeshed in conflict or disaster. Such applies particularly to the banning of the recruitment and use of child soldiers; support for children caught up in refugee and illegal immigrant confrontations; and continued advocacy for greater international compliance with the Ottawa Convention to ban the use of anti-personnel landmines. Volunteering for such service must occur in cold 'down time', ensuring that paediatricians are trained in disaster and conflict response, when such challenges inevitably confront the paediatricians of the future., (© 2012 The Author. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health © 2012 Paediatrics and Child Health Division (Royal Australasian College of Physicians).)

Background: The history of military surgery claims many forebears. The first surgeon-soldiers were Homer's Machaon and Podalirius, followed a thousand years later by the Roman surgeons-general, Antonius Musa and Euphorbus; and later, e.g. Ambrose Paré, John Hunter and Sir John Pringle; and the 19th century innovators, Dominique-Jean Larrey (France), Friedrich von Esmarch (Prussia) and the Russian, Nikolai Pirogoff. The singular feature that distinguished modern military surgery from its earlier practice was the use of gunpowder. It was one of two inventions (the other was printing) that by the empowerment of individuals, lifted Western humankind from the medieval to the modern era., Methods: Research of primary and secondary archives., Results and Conclusion: Gunpowder was first used in European warfare at Algeceras (1344-1368). Hitherto, the destruction of tissue had been the result of (relative) low-energy wounding with tissue damage caused by incisional or crushing wounds. The founder of modern surgery, Master John of Arderne (1307-1380), wrote of his experience gained as a military surgeon on the battlefield at Crecy (1346). Following Crecy, Arderne was the only chronicler who described the origins of the Prince of Wales's feathers as a royal and later commercial symbol, and the motto 'Ich Dien', 'I serve', as that of hospitals in the Western World. Later advances in military surgery incorporated both clinical experimentation and the innovation of new systems of pre-hospital battlefield care., (© 2012 The Author. ANZ Journal of Surgery © 2012 Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.)

Coins and commemorative medals constitute one special repository of the history of military medicine. The numismatic record has proven to be the most enduring, albeit one of the most selective, records of the progress of history. Matters of health, and especially of military medicine, have been central to the endeavors and indeed the survival of many cultures and societies. Many such themes in the national and international history of military medicine are preserved in the medallic record. Coins and medallions thus constitute one record of the chronology of this profession, one parallel to that of the more traditional history to be found in oral and written records. This account presents a four-part classification of medical coins and medals of military interest. These examples include (1) medals that portray military surgeons and physicians; (2) medals that commemorate special events of military medicine: (3) coins that portray the themes of the discipline of military medicine and health; and (4) a miscellaneous group that includes such examples as disease "touch pieces" and the militarily worn medals of such bodies as the International Red Cross and the Order of St. John, the latter of which are awarded inter alia for contributions to prehospital care in the field. A representative photo archive of such exemplars is included in this account.

In the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915, doctor-soldiers, stretcher-bearers and medical corpsmen of both the Allied and the Turkish armies scrupulously followed both the letter and the spirit of the Geneva Conventions. In spite of their non-combatant roles within the imposts of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, under whose emblems they serviced, medical members of both the Allied and Turkish medical services suffered great losses. Of the 66 medical officers and 536 other members of the Australian Army Medical Corps on Gallipoli, 293 were killed or wounded or evacuated sick, a casualty rate of 47 percent. This figure was the highest such casualty rate for Allied medical personnel in all the military campaigns of the twentieth century. The Turkish figures were even higher. During armistice-truces, some of which lasted for several hours for the evacuation of the wounded and the retrieval of the dead, medical officers of both sides occasionally collaborated in their work of humanity. This account describes one such encounter, and the gift of a surgical medical kit by a wounded Australian Regimental Medical Officer to his Turkish counterpart -- a tiny event in the sweep of great events, but one symbolic of an ethos of medicine and humanity higher than the tragedy of war. Military medicine has contributed much to the practice of medicine in the civilian context. Rescue and resuscitation, triage, casualty evacuation, emergency surgery, nutrition and public health are some themes where the exigencies of military medicine have engendered great advances in civilian health. One of the greatest advances of all has not been in the technical aspects of surgical or medical treatment, nor in the legacy of preventive medicine and public health, great as such advances have been. We refer here to another theme -- to the concept of "Sono Fratelli" or "They are Brothers".1 This underlying theme is the foundation of the ethical stance, binding on doctors of both civilian and military calling, to treat casualties without cognisance of politics, class, creed, race or ethnic group, or of friendly or enemy status.2,3 Such has its influence also on all of those who treat prisoners and criminals; and indeed on all those who, in the terms of contemporary bioethics, treat victims who might be classed as "captive patients". This ethos also binds those who are called upon to make ranking judgements in the order of treatment of casualties presenting concurrently, but who are of differing societal status or class. This ethic binds all members of both the civilian world of medicine and of the defence health services of civilised nations. It specifies that in emergency situations, it is an individual's wounds, injuries or illness which are the sole determinants of their treatment. We believe that this concept of humanity, enshrined from 1864 in the Geneva Conventions,4 represents an advance in medicine commensurate with any in the technical or scientific field. Its ethos, today engrafted upon the Hippocratic traditions and dictates of medical practice, determines the underlying flavour by which best-practice is conducted. In this, the Centenary Year of the Gallipoli Campaign, we describe the details of one pragmatic example of the sanctity of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent;5 and of the spirit of the Geneva Conventions which govern the conduct of doctors, both civilian and military. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY This account documents some aspects of military radiology in the aftermath of the Rwandan Civil War of 1994. Following the genocidal conflict of April-July 1994, all radiographic services ceased in Rwanda, a nation of some 7 500 000 people. As part of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force, UNAMIR II, the Australian Medical Support Force established and provided, on an ongoing basis, sophisticated medical, surgical and intensivist care for the sick and wounded United Nations personnel, of whom there were up to 7000 deployed in Rwanda; and, as part of its humanitarian outreach, emergency medical and surgical care for Rwandese civilians. The Australian contingent of 308 service personnel established the Australian Military Hospital (the 'United Nations Hospital') in the former Clinic Wing of the Kigali Central Hospital. From August 1994 the Radiology Department of the Australian Medical Support Force provided the first specialist X-ray services as part of the re-building of the stricken nation and, over the ensuing year, provided a diagnostic service for soldiers and civilians with both chronic and recent war wounds, trauma victims in the aftermath of the Civil War, sick and injured soldiers and Rwandese suffering from any of the full range of medical conditions encountered in tropical Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]