Foreign medical help in Serbian liberation wars from 1912 until 1918

Abstract

This work concerns involvement of the foreign medical missions during the Serbian Liberation Wars from 1912 until 1918, the work of their members immediately behind the front lines and in the back, healing of the wounded and the diseased, especially at the time of the great epidemics of typhoid fever, and also the efforts of numerous Serbian friends who collected the funds and material for equipping and sending of those missions. An American mission which came first to Serbia, soon after the beginning of the war operations and which was led by Dr. Edward Ryan, was specially mentioned. For many smaller of bigger missions, it is known that they acted in some of the Serbian war zones. A special attention was paid to the work of The Scottish Women's Hospital, its formation and means of funding, work in war conditions, attitudes towards wounded Serbs and posture during the Serbian retreat before the German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian occupying armies. This text is largely the author's own view of his two books on medical assistance which the Serbs received from their friends from abroad (Medical Missions at Serbian Battlefields 1912-1918 and The Scottish Women with the Serbs 1914-1918). The first of these booklets contains a list with over 1350 names (of which, approximately 700 are the medical doctors), and the other 1230, were based on the author's personal inspection of the available literature and materials, significantly increased the official data of the Serbian Red Cross about the number of medical staff who reached Serbian battlefields: doubles them for the Balkan wars, while in the Great war they were at least five times greater. © 2010, Oncology Institute of Vojvodina, Sremska Kamenica.