Med Confl Surviv. 2014 Oct 13:1-19. [Epub ahead of print]

Mapping the war: gender, health, and the medical profession in France and Germany, 1914-1918.

Michl S.

Author information

• a Institute for History, Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine , Johannes-Gutenberg University , Mainz , Germany.

Abstract

This article compares the gender and health politics of the German and the French medical professions, which incorporated military command structures into their civilian self-conception. Mobilized doctors committed themselves to the new circumstances and opportunities offered by the war. They applied the established military spatial 'map' which distinguished between the male-dominated front and the female-dominated home front and turned it into an epidemiological map, identifying danger zones which arose from points of contact between men and women. The analysis singles out two case studies: the rapid spread of venereal disease and psychiatric disorders. These case studies allow for a comparative analysis of the following questions: How did doctors assess the impacts of the war on the individual and the society as a whole? How did they view the war's impact on conventional gender orders, individual and national health? And how did they see their own role as a part of an independent civilian profession?