Medical responses to civil war and revolution in Spain, 1936–1939: international aid and local self-organization

Abstract

The traditional view that war is ‘good’ for medicine has been challenged by some historians in recent decades. In the case of the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939, a number of advances in wound treatment, emergency surgery and other areas reputedly occurred, and were important in shaping the medical response to more extended warfare in 1939–1945. At the same time, there was a significant attempt at humanitarian intervention, aiming to provide medical aid and health care for the war's casualties and refugees, in parallel with local transformations in health provision. Political differences within as well as between the contending forces complicated matters. These developments are examined with a view to assessing their implications in the contemporary international context.

Keywords:

• anarchism
• collectivization
• humanitarian aid
• military medicine
• nursing in war
• Spanish civil war

Acknowledgement

This article owes a great deal to the information, interest and encouragement provided by Professor Michael Alpert's course on the Spanish Civil War at the University of Westminster (1998–2000).