"Drawing on extensive diary and records he kept while serving as a consultant to American surgeons in the North African-Mediterranean theater of operations, Dr. Edward D. Churchill ... [writes about] combat surgery, the progress in military medicine during World War II, and wound management and mismanagement ... in this ... account of his experiences"--Jacket.

pt. 1. Medical mobilization. National research committees -- Thermal burns -- You're in the army now -- Wound shock and blood transfusion -- The new sulfa drug era of surgery -- pt. 2. North Africa. Arrival in Algiers -- The army learns about war -- Diary and letters of a forward surgeon -- The Algerian Highlands -- Retreat of Africa Corps from El Alamein -- A look at an evacuation hospital -- The Tunisian campaign -- Prisoners of war -- The consultants in North Africa -- Surgery of wounds of the soft parts -- A time for reassessment -- Prostitution and venereal disease -- pt. 3. Sicily. Preparation for Sicily : Operation Husky -- The Sicilian campaign -- Penicillin in Tripoli -- To Cairo -- pt. 4. Italy. My first visit to Naples -- Gas gangrene -- Cold injury -- From Capri to Typhus -- Mustard gas in Bari Harbor -- Clinical conference : a trip to Oran -- Italy after the fall of Rome -- V.I.P. visit -- Midsummer madness -- pt. 5. The last phase. The Board for the Study of the Severely Wounded -- Invasion of southern France -- Escort to a Congresswoman -- Christmas at home -- Rome Congress of army surgeons -- Grand opera and brain surgery in Florence -- Paris, London, Berlin, home.