From No Man’s Land to Auxiliary Hospital

Abstract

This chapter revisits the chain of evacuation from the perspective of how RAMC Other Ranks’ work was influenced by strategic and technological changes in practice, both military and medical, as they developed over the course of the war. By exploring how such change over time affected the working practices of the men of the RAMC, it interrogates the question of whether the war was good for medicine from the perspective of the non-professional male medical care provider. In doing so, it contributes to wider debates over the relationship between war, medicine, and modernity, suggesting that many of the aspects of change associated with progression had a more ambiguous impact on the lived experiences of the men whose practice they shaped. This ambiguity was reflected in the impact that such developments had on the status of the ranks of the RAMC as both care providers and servicemen throughout the war.