Healing Technology

Image: Randolph Field School of Aviation Medicine; Wikimedia Commons

While most people only associate battlefields with destructive technology, a large aspect of war-related technology was focused on saving lives both through reactive and proactive means. During the second World War a multitude of medicines were established and mass produced to proactively keep the troops both alive and healthy. David Mindel shows that while penicillin was not created during World War II, it was first mass produced during this period to treat gonorrhea and syphilis, which has plagued armies for ages (3). Given the variety of locations that soldiers fought in during World War II it was also necessary to develop medicines to stop tropical diseases from being life-threatening. Without the advancement in medicinal technology many troops would have been incapacitated by disease far before they could contribute to the war. This time period also marked advances in aviation medicine, which allowed soldiers to fly safely at high altitudes (Mindell). Even though radar and bombsight allowed pilots to fight at higher altitudes, without the advances in aviation medicine this would have been useless. Neither of the technologies alone could have changed the war, but their combination greatly influenced the war and shows how the countries involved understood the advantage that technological progress offered them. Also, none of these technologies were offensive weapons, in fact they bear far more resemblance to defensive weaponry in that they protect the user from danger. These inventions were by far some of the most useful and influential throughout the entirety of the war, and without them none of the offensive technology would have been effective.