When my interest in WW1 was growing, it was very hard to find good books about WW1 in the Dutch language.
In those days not many authors kept themselves busy with WW1.
And then I found "zacht en eervol" from Leo van Bergen.
It left me impressed, stunned, searching for more.
It was an eyeopener and a beginning of a long deep interest and commitment in WW1 remembrance and finding of knowledge.

And I am very glad and also proud to see that this book has been translated in English too!

Before my Helpless Sight. Suffering, dying and military medicine on the Western Front 1914-1918 (Ashgate Publishing 2009)


Leo van Bergen, is a medical historian at the VU-university medical centre in Amsterdam. His main topic is the relationship between war and medicine, and within that topic a major part of his interest goes to WWI. As a result he got a PhD in the history of the Dutch Red Cross and his thinking on actions in war (1867-1945)

\See also:
http://forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl/viewtopic.php?t=17321

Needless to say that it's a "must read"

Regards,
Yvonne Heslinga

For those interested in other reviews see: http://www.wereldoorlog1418.nl/helpless-sight/index.html
or: http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/boo...less-sight.html

I've found a review of the book:

Before My Helpless Sight: Suffering, Dying, and Military Medicine on the Western Front. 1914-1918 ,by Leo van Bergen, medical historian at the VU-University Medical Center in Amsterdam, has written the definitive book on the subjects in the title. The depths of his insites in all aspects of what it was like is amazing certainly given that he is neither a doctor or a veteran There is deftness of touch here of source materials and a vast breath of reading and understanding.  Much of the narrative is moving, poignant, and horrific and to my sense right. It has a smooth flow and easy reading style accessible to student and scholar. I say this as a veteran of the Vietnam war who spent his early years 1966-68 as a Navy Hospital Corpsman on the psychiatric wards of Bethesda Naval hospital and as a platoon corpsman with the 2nd Bn, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division in Vietnam in 1968-69.  This followed by a 35 year career as a physicians assistant in general surgery and forensic medicine. I highly recommend this book to all who are students of that war and the wars of today because, the real horrors of war are not on the battlefield but in the aide stations and hospitals then as now.
 
Jack V Sturiano
Friend of the In Flanders Fields Museum and member of the Great War Society’

Regards,
Yvonne