No man's land The trailblazing women who ran Britain's most extraordinary military hospital during World War I

Soldiers fighting in WWI lived "in the hell wrought by men," but if they were injured, the best place to go was a London military hospital run by women. This well-researched, well-written story makes a strong case for how British suffering during the Great War would have been even worse if not for the heroic female physicians who previously were allowed to operate only on women and children. London journalist Moore (How to Create the Perfect Wife, 2013) focuses largely on suffragette physicians Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson (the daughter of Britain's first female doctor), who lived and worked together and believed in women's right to vote and to practice medicine. The war presented them with the unique opportunity to show that they were equal to men, and, indeed, Murray became the highest-ranking woman in the British Army. Despite their trailblazing efforts, progress was slow, but female doctors are predicted to outnumber male doctors in the UK by 2022. Moore provides fresh insights by viewing WWI via hospitals, not battlefields, and by focusing on female physicians, not male soldiers.WOMEN IN FOCUS: 19th in 2020

Journalist Moore (The Mesmerist) delivers a crisp, novelistic portrait of the Endell Street Military Hospital, the only WWI British army hospital staffed entirely by women (with the exception of a few male security guards and orderlies), and the two doctors who ran it. Recognizing the opportunity WWI offered for female doctors to prove their worth (they had previously had been limited to treating women and children), Louisa Garrett Anderson, a surgeon whose mother was "the first woman to qualify in Britain as a doctor," and Flora Murray, a physician and anesthetist, opened an emergency hospital for wounded soldiers in Paris. The success of that venture, as well as fears that hospitals were becoming "dangerously understaffed" as male doctors and medical students entered military service, led to an invitation from the War Office to run a 1,000-bed hospital in London. Committed suffragists and "partners in their private lives" as well as in their work, Anderson and Murray named the hospital's wards after female saints, performed innovative surgical procedures, and earned acclaim for running the hospital "with both military precision and homey domesticity." Drawing on diaries, letters, and newspaper accounts, Moore narrates with verve and precision, highlighting the pressures and obstacles these women and their staff faced. Readers interested in medical, military, and women's histories will savor this sterling account. (Apr.)

During World War I, women physicians saw an opportunity to aid the war effort and prove their professional worth. Drawing on rich archival material, including letters and memoirs, London-based journalist Moore crafts a compelling history of the challenges faced by women doctors in the early years of the last century. The author focuses primarily on two indomitable women--surgeon Louisa Garrett Anderson and physician and anesthetist Flora Murray--who both had trained at the London School of Medicine for Women and who became lifelong companions. They, like their colleagues, faced widespread hostility; the British Medical Journal complained that the profession was being "besieged by fair invaders." Nevertheless, determined to set up a hospital for wounded soldiers, the two women raised funds from friends, family, and fellow suffragettes, and many young women came forward eager to serve as doctors, nurses, and orderlies. First establishing a hospital in France, soon their success came to the attention of the British War Office, which invited them to run a 1,000-bed military hospital in a former workhouse on Endell Street in London. Unlike any other British Army hospital, Moore writes, "it would be run solely by women, with an almost entirely female staff." The author's chronicle of the Endell Street hospital highlights the barbarity of the war: In its four and a half years of existence, the hospital treated tens of thousands of patients and performed more than 7,000 surgeries, treating injuries--such as wounds from powerful artillery and high-explosive shells and the horrific effects of chlorine gas--that many physicians had never before seen. Its reputation was stellar despite incredulous reports about a hospital run by "mere women." Many medical schools, facing a dearth of male students, at last opened their doors to women. After the war, though, "women doctors were sidelined again into low-status, low paid jobs" in maternity, child care, asylums, and workhouse infirmaries, and medical schools again barred women; "peace had seemingly brought their value to an end." An absorbing history of courage and carnage. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.