Health memories from Annual to Alhucemas: Medical advances between 1921 and 1925

Abstract

Year 2021 marks a century since the Annual Disaster, an evento that ocurred in the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco bewtween July 21 and August 9 of that year, one of the most tragic defeats suffered by the Spanish Army through its history. Between September 8 and October 13, 1925, the SPanish Navy and Army in collaboration with French tropos, successfully landed at Alhucemas Bay, occupying and pacifying the área, which contributed to end the Rif War. The circumstances that occurred in this war period gave rise to important medical and health advances. In just a few years, wounded transport was improved emplying ambulances, hospital ships and medical planes; filed hospital were deployed in the Forefront to shorten the time from the battle field to the first treatment facility; surgical procedures were performed with innovative techniques at that time, epidural anesthesia was discovered and finally, thanks to an agile health system adapted to the área, sicks and wounded soldiers were recovered in hospital located in the Iberian Peninsula. Military and civil doctors, nurses from Spanish Red Cross, nuns, friars, health workers, soldiers, volunteers…applied their knowledge, tenacity and work for the sake of caring for patient, without any doubt, the ultimate goal for any health professional.