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Heather R. Perry. Recycling the Disabled: Army, Medicine, and Modernity in WWI Germany. Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 2015. xi + 228 pp. Ill. $105.00 (978-0-7190-8924-4).
Heather R. Perry's fascinating history of World War I-era Germany simultaneously traces the medicalization of combat-acquired disability, the development of prosthetic technology, and the professionalization of orthopedics. During World War I, the German military experienced significantly more casualties than in previous conflicts. Perry successfully argues that German orthopedists responded to the crisis by using medicine and surgery to "recycle" the war wounded into essential industrial and agricultural workers, freeing able-bodied men to reinforce the fighting forces on the frontlines and ensuring an adequate workforce after the war's end (pp. 3-4). Along the way, orthopedists substantially improved their professional status for the long term.
In chapter 1, Perry describes the pre-war development of orthopedics as a "surgical subfield" focused on pediatric patients (pp. 22-23). Orthopedists had expanded their scope of work to include treating adults with chronic orthopedic conditions resulting from childhood poverty and disease and harsh working conditions. Nevertheless, at...