"This Ghastly War"

During World War I, Dr Mary Crawford spent a year volunteering at the American Ambulance Hospital in France. Among the first American physicians to join the war effort, she was the only woman doctor on the hospital staff. Her diary and letters, presented here with historical context, narrate day-to-day life in a hospital on the Western Front.

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During World War I, Dr. Mary M. Crawford spent nearly a year volunteering at the American Ambulance Hospital in France. Among the first American physicians to join the Allied war effort in 1914, she was the only woman doctor on the hospital staff.

Her diary and letters, presented here with historical context, narrate day-to-day life in a hospital on the Western Front, with clinical descriptions of the human toll at the battles of Ypres and Champagne. Torn between devotion to family and her commitment to the war effort, Crawford reveals her dedication to her patients, many of whom were French colonial soldiers.