The termmilitary medicine has a number of potential connotations. It may mean:
A medical specialty, specifically a branch ofoccupational medicine attending to the medical risks and needs (both preventive and interventional) of soldiers, sailors and other service members. This disparate arena has historically involved the prevention and treatment ofinfectious diseases (especiallytropical diseases), and, in the 20th century, the ergonomics and health effects of operating military-specific machines and equipment such assubmarines,tanks,helicopters andairplanes.Undersea andaviation medicine can be understood as subspecialties of military medicine, or in any case originated as such. Few countries certify or recognize "military medicine" as a formal speciality or subspeciality in its own right.
The planning and practice of the surgical management of mass battlefield casualties and the logistical and administrative considerations of establishing and operatingcombat support hospitals. This involves military medical hierarchies, especially the organization of structured medical command and administrative systems that interact with and support deployedcombat units. (SeeBattlefield medicine.)
The administration and practice of health care for military service members and their dependents in non-deployed (peacetime) settings. This may (as in the United States) consist of a medical system paralleling all the medical specialties and sub-specialties that exist in the civilian sector. (See alsoVeterans Health Administration which serves U.S. veterans.)
Medicalresearch and development specifically bearing upon problems of military medical interest. Historically, this encompasses all of the medical advances emerging from medical research efforts directed at addressing the problems encountered by deployed military forces (e.g., vaccines or drugs for soldiers,medical evacuation systems, drinking waterchlorination, etc.) many of which ultimately prove important beyond the purely military considerations that inspired them.
Military medical personnel engage inhumanitarian work and are "protected persons" underinternational humanitarian law in accordance with theFirst andSecond Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, which established legally binding rules guaranteeing neutrality and protection for wounded soldiers, field or ship's medical personnel, and specific humanitarian institutions in anarmed conflict. International humanitarian law makes no distinction between medical personnel who are members of the armed forces (and who hold military ranks) and those who are civilian volunteers. All medical personnel are considerednon-combatants under international humanitarian law because of their humanitarian duties, and they may not be attacked and not be taken asprisoners of war; hospitals and other medical facilities and transports identified as such, whether they are military or civilian, may not be attacked either. Thered cross, the red crescent and the red crystal are theprotective signs recognised under international humanitarian law, and are used by military medical personnel and facilities for this purpose. Attacking military medical personnel, patients in their care, or medical facilities or transports legitimately marked as such is awar crime. Likewise, misusing these protective signs to mask military operations is the war crime ofperfidy. Military medical personnel may be armed, usually withservice pistols, for the purpose ofself defense or the defense of patients.
The significance of military medicine for combat strength goes far beyond treatment of battlefield injuries; in every major war fought until the late 19th century disease claimed more soldier casualties than did enemy action. During theAmerican Civil War (1860–65), for example, about twice as many soldiers died of disease as were killed or mortally wounded in combat.[1] TheFranco-Prussian War (1870–71) is considered to have been the first conflict in which combat injury exceeded disease, at least in the German coalition army which lost 3.47% of its average headcount to combat and only 1.82% to disease.[2] In new world countries, such as Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada, military physicians and surgeons contributed significantly to the development of civilian health care.[3][4]
Improvements in military medicine have increased the survival rates in successive wars, due to improvements inmedical evacuation,battlefield medicine andtrauma care.[4][5] Similar improvements have been seen in trauma practices during the Iraq war.[6] Some military trauma care practices are disseminated by citizen soldiers who return to civilian practice.[4][7][8] One such practice is where major trauma patients are transferred to an operating theater as soon as possible, to stopinternal bleeding, increasing the survival rate. Within the United States, the survival rate for gunshot wounds has increased, leading to apparent declines in the gun death rate in states that have stable rates of gunshot hospitalizations.[9][10][11][12]
In many English-speaking countries themilitary title of surgeon is applied to any medical practitioner, due to the historical evolution of the term. TheUS Army Medical Corps retains various surgeonUnited States military occupation codes in the ranks ofofficer pay grades, for military personnel dedicated to performing surgery on wounded soldiers.
According to a 2025 study, which examined inter-state wars from 1900 onwards, found that militaries that have better military medicine have improvedmilitary effectiveness.[13]
Bowlby, Sir Anthony and Colonel Cuthbert Wallace. "The Development of British Surgery at the Front."The British Medical Journal 1 (1917): 705–721.
Churchill, Edward D. "Healing by First Intention and with Suppuration: Studies in the History of Wound Healing.”Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 19 (1964): 193–214.
Churchill, Edward D. “The Surgical Management of the wounded at the time of the Fall of Rome.”Annals of Surgery 120 (1944): 268–283.
Cowdrey, Albert E.Fighting for Life: American Military Medicine in World War II (1994), scholarly history, 400 pp
Cowdrey, Albert E.United States Army in the Korean War: The Medics War (1987), full-scale scholarly official history;online free
Fauntleroy, A.M. "The Surgical Lessons of the European War."Annals of Surgery 64 (1916): 136–150.
Fazal, Tanisha M. (2024).Military Medicine and the Hidden Costs of War. Oxford University Press.
Grissinger, Jay W. "The Development of Military Medicine."Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 3 (1927): 301–356.online
Harrison, Mark.Medicine and victory: British military medicine in the Second World War (Oxford UP, 2004).
Whayne, Col. Tom F. and Colonel Joseph H. McNinch. “Fifty Years of Medical Progress: Medicine as a Social Instrument: Military Medicine.”The New England Journal of Medicine 244 (1951): 591–601.
Wintermute, Bobby A.Public health and the US military: a history of the Army Medical Department, 1818–1917 (2010).
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