A Time to Kill, A Time to Heal Quiz

Answer: The Crimean War

Born into an upper-middle class family in England, Florence Nightingale defied her family's objections when she decided to become a nurse. Receiving training from a Lutheran hospital institution in Germany, she rose to prominence during the Crimean War, a conflict between Russia and France, England, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia. Lasting between 1853 and 1856, the Crimean War was one of the first international wars fought with modern-style artillery, and the casualties were tremendous. In a time of little front-line hospital help, however, the vast majority of Crimean War deaths were due to post-battle complications, including disease.

Florence Nightingale made it her mission to change this. She expounded the use of soap and water for cleanliness and hygiene, and valiantly battled to overcome threats posed by dysentery, cholera, gangrene, and other infections. She became known for her compassionate nature towards the injured soldiers as well, becoming nicknamed "The Lady with the Lamp" because of her habit of visiting wards at night to check up on her patients. Following her work in the Crimea, she became a supporter of nursing as a career for women in England, opening up the field for others like herself.

Answer: American Revolutionary War

Dr. Benjamin Rush was Surgeon General for the Continental Army during the American War of Independence, which lasted from 1765 to 1783. Rush was much more than this, however; a Renaissance man, he was involved in many projects that helped to shape the future of the United States.

Rush was a signee of the Declaration of Independence, becoming one of the Founding Father of America. As a Doctor, he helped to promote medical education, and assisted in the founding of Dickson College. He particularly encouraged hygiene in medicine, and devoted study to psychiatry.

Answer: American Revolutionary War

Joseph Warren, born in the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1741, became a physician and was a practicing surgeon in Boston in the years leading to the American Revolutionary War. His duties during the war were not primarily medical, however; he became a Founding Father, just like Dr. Benjamin Rush.

Warren led troops at several major battles during the Revolutionary War, including at Lexington and Concord. He played a role during the Siege of Boston, and is also well known as having been the officer who sent Paul Revere and William Dawes to warn the rebels of the British troops' approach in 1775. He died at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775. He had been given the rank of major general shortly before the battle, but elected to fight as a private instead. He is known as one of the great heroes of the American Revolutionary War.

Answer: American Civil War

Cara Barton, born Clarissa Harlowe Barton in Massachusetts, United States, took up nursing early in life when for years she took care of a brother who had fallen off of a barn roof. Initially, however, she had a career in teaching, despite a shy and introverted nature. Later in 1855, she became a clerk in a U.S. Patent Office. In 1861, however, she took up nursing once again when victims of the Baltimore Riot were sent to the building in which she lived.

During the American Civil War (1861-1865), Barton became a prominent nurse just behind front lines for the Union Army. Known as "The American Florence Nightingale", Barton garnered support for the Army, as well as for hygiene and for women in the medical profession. By 1864, she was appointed in charge of the Union Army field hospitals.

Her work didn't stop after the end of the war. Instead, she turned to support the cause of missing soldiers, helping to set up the Office of Missing Soldiers and replying to letters from distraught families. She also worked for the American Red Cross, assisting in setting up field hospitals during the early years of the Franco-Prussian War. She died at the age of 90 in 1912.

Answer: Philippine-American War & World War I

An American, George F. Shiels served in the US Army Volunteer Medical Corps during the Philippine-American War (1899-1902). While serving, he received a Medal of Honor for running into enemy fire to carry two wounded native Filipinos into safety.

After this conflict, Shiels was known as "The Fighting Doctor." His achievements did not stop there, however; during World War One, he received a Silver Star while serving as a Major. This again was for bravery in action. After World War One, he taught medicine at several universities before his death in 1943.

Answer: American Revolutionary War & War of 1812

Hailing from Delaware, United States, Dr. James Tilton served as a surgeon during the American Revolutionary War. He was also a member of the Continental Congress between 1783 and 1784.

His real work was done during the War of 1812, however, during which he served as the Surgeon General of the United States Army. He was the very first person to hold this position, as the Army was being reorganized at the time. He served from 1813 to 1815.

Answer: World War I & World War II

Smith was born in Iowa, United States, in 1885, and obtained his medical degree from the University of Iowa in 1911. Working with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), Smith was sent to the Ottoman Empire where he worked as a doctor and Christian missionary. During his time there, he became a witness to the Empire's genocide of Armenians, and he treated those injured.

Although Smith continued to treat patients in the Philippines after World War I, he was not to escape involvement in World War II. Captured by the Japanese during their Philippine invasion of 1941-42, Smith was placed in the Santo Tomas internment camp. He saved dozens of fellow internees while there, particularly from the effects of malnutrition. Although Smith continued practicing in the Philippines after the War, he eventually returned to the United States in the 1950s where he died in 1961.

Answer: Spanish-American War

Born in Virginia in 1851, Dr. Walter Reed became the University of Virginia's youngest M.D. graduate when he completed his degree at the age of 18. After completing a second M.D. a year later in New York, Reed eventually entered the U.S. Army Medical Corps in 1875.

As a medical investigator, Reed solved several mysteries that had been taking a toll on troops during the Spanish-American War (1898). Among these was the discovery that yellow fever was spread through mosquitos; the disease had been deadly among troops building the Panama Canal, and after this discovery building was soon completed. He also successfully discovered the cause of a typhoid fever epidemic among troops. The bacteriologist died in 1902 at the age of 51, from peritonitis.

Answer: Siege of Perpignan (1542)

Ambroise Paré, born in northwestern France around 1510, studied medicine at Hotel-Dieu hospital, as well as being apprenticed to his brother, a barber-surgeon. Paré rose to prominence, as the surgeon for four French kings, Henry II, Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III.

Paré goes down in history, however, for being the father of battlefield medicine. During conflicts between France and its neighbors, Paré accompanied the troops, and used scientific methods that contradicted earlier beliefs. He worked in prostheses as well, developing limbs for those who had lost theirs in battle. A Huguenot, Paré only survived the St. Bartholomew's Massacre of 1572 when King Charles IX locked him in a closet to save him from the crowds. He died of natural causes in 1590.

Answer: French Revolutionary & Napoleonic Wars

Born in the Pyrenees in 1766, Larrey became the youngest naval surgeon at the time when he began this career in 1787 at the age of 21. He soon became an innovator and expert in front line military treatment and triage; he treated wounded in a makeshift ambulance during the Storming of the Bastille in 1789.

A high-ranking officer in both the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Larrey continued his innovation in ambulances and became a friend of Napoleon Bonaparte. During the Napoleonic Wars he saved the life of the son of General Blucher, the Prussian general, and this act saved Larrey's own life when he was captured during the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Following France's defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, Larrey became France's chief army surgeon. The Dominique-Jean Larrey Award, bestowed by NATO, is that organization's greatest medical award, and is named in Larrey's honor.