Editing History of medicine (section)

==== World War II (1939-1945) ====
[[File:Ww2-53.jpg|thumb|American combat surgery during the [[Pacific War]], 1943]]
The advances in medicine made a dramatic difference for Allied troops, while the Germans and especially the Japanese and Chinese suffered from a severe lack of newer medicines, techniques and facilities. Harrison finds that the chances of recovery for a badly wounded British infantryman were as much as 25 times better than in the First World War. The reason was that:
:"By 1944 most casualties were receiving treatment within hours of wounding, due to the increased mobility of field hospitals and the extensive use of aeroplanes as ambulances. The care of the sick and wounded had also been revolutionized by new medical technologies, such as active immunization against tetanus, sulphonamide drugs, and penicillin."<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Harrison M |title=Medicine and Victory: British Military Medicine in the Second World War |date=2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-151496-8 | page = 275 }}</ref>
During the [[second World War]], [[Alexis Carrel]] and [[Henry Drysdale Dakin|Henry Dakin]] developed the [[Carrel-Dakin method]] of treating wounds with an irrigation, Dakin's solution, a [[germicide]] which helped prevent [[gangrene]].<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Harrison M |title=The medical war: British military medicine in the First World War |date=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-957582-4 }}</ref>

The War spurred the usage of [[Wilhelm Röntgen|Roentgen]]'s [[X-ray]], and the [[electrocardiograph]], for the [[monitoring (medicine)|monitoring]] of internal bodily functions. This was followed in the inter-war period by the development of the first anti-bacterial agents such as the [[sulpha]] antibiotics.