Categorizing the Broken Body: 'Light' and 'Heavy' Wounds in Early Modern Russian Military Medical Documents

• In Event: Bodies on Paper: Writing Injuries and Illness into Being in Early Modern Russia

Abstract

After the heat of battle comes the bureaucracy. The early modern Russian war machine, obsessed with battle-readiness, had their medics not only examine wounded soldiers, but make lists of them, neatly divided into those “heavily” wounded and those merely “lightly” wounded. This paper examines those post-battle assessments to investigate what, from the cold and pragmatic perspective of the military medical establishment, constituted a serious wound.

Author

• Clare Griffin, Indiana U Bloomington