Fit to fight – from military hygiene to wellbeing in the British Army

Martin C. M. Bricknell; Colonel David A. Ross

doi:10.1186/s40779-020-00248-6

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Fit to fight – from military hygiene to wellbeing in the British Army

PERSPECTIVE | Updated：2023-06-05

- Fit to fight – from military hygiene to wellbeing in the British Army
- Military Medical Research Vol. 7, Issue 4, Pages: 482-488(2020)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Health and Military Medicine, Conflict and Health Research Group, School of Security Studies, King's College London, Strand Campus, London WC2R 2LS, UK.
  2.Parkes Professor of Preventive Medicine, Robertson House, Camberley GU15 4NA, UK.
- Author bio：
  
  * martin.bricknell@kcl.ac.uk
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1186/s40779-020-00248-6
  CLC：
- Published：2020-12
- Accepted：
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Bricknell et al.: Fit to fight – from military hygiene to wellbeing in the British Army. Mil Med Res,2020, 7: 18.
DOI：

Bricknell et al.: Fit to fight – from military hygiene to wellbeing in the British Army. Mil Med Res,2020, 7: 18. DOI： 10.1186/s40779-020-00248-6.

摘要

Abstract

This paper reviews the historical evolution of the language and organization surrounding the health of personnel in the British Army from 'hygiene’ through to 'wellbeing’. It starts by considering the health of the army in the mid-nineteenth century and the emergence of military hygiene as a professional subject. It continues by looking at advances in military hygiene in the two world wars. Hygiene was replaced by the term 'health’ in the 1950s as the collective noun used by professionals working in this field. This unity split when the professions of occupational medicine and public health established separate faculties and training pathways. However

the health issues for the armed forces remain fundamentally unchanged. Going forward

the term 'wellbeing’ is helping to refresh the close relationships between executives

their medical advisers and those within the population of health professions charged with keeping the British Army healthy. The core theme is the collaborations between civil society

executive leadership and medical services in maximizing the health of the military population from recruitment through to life as a veteran.

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