One of the problems in doing a weblog such as this, based on desktop research that is basically powered by Google and supplemented by Wikipedia, is that one can only work on work that has already been done.
If I want to tell you about the doubling of human knowledge in medicine, I have to look at something that has been measured, and measured over time, as well. This essentially means that much of the subject matter has already been chosen for me.
My desire would be to measure the doubling of human knowledge by noting beneficial effects of new knowledge. If human knowledge in oncology has doubled in 5 years, the clearest proof for me would be the doubling of survival rates for cancer in the same period (although there would obviously be a time lag involved). That's for my next post.
But casualties to U.S. troops on the battlefield are measured, and historical information allows comparison. And, there is evidence of dramatic improvements in survival rates for casualties due to improvements in care. Note that not all improvements are due to specifically medical knowledge. Improvements in logistics (getting a wounded soldier to care, getting the right treatment to the soldier on the battlefield, improvements in body armor) contribute heavily to this improvement. However, this is all improved knowledge being applied to the medical treatment of injured soldiers. To me, this counts.
Here is the lead paragraph from the first result of a search on Google News for 'battlefield survival rates.' It comes from Heraldnet in an article titled "Trauma Care Boosts Battlefield Survival Rate."
"The survival rate for U.S. service members wounded in Iraq has reached 90 percent - higher than in any previous war and 10 points higher than in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
The major reason, says the general in charge of Army medical training, is improved trauma care being delivered moments after injury by medics and a growing number of soldiers trained as combat lifesavers."
The U.S. Army Public Affairs site has an article about the improved survival rates as well, noting that "of the 1,077 soldiers injured in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, only 18 have died of their wounds, a rate of only 1.6 percent. This is less than half the 3.68 death rate for wounded soldiers in Vietnam."
I would rather have this type of information about cancer survival rates. I don't think that battlefield survival rates necessarily should have a one-to-one correspondence with improvements in knowledge, training and logistics. But this is what is being written about. What it does show is that knowledge has improved dramatically--but it has improved incrementally and linearly, not geometrically, and the period is perhaps over a decade and not five years.
The final word shows more historical comparison, coming from Wounds1.com. "During World War II, approximately 30% (almost one-third) of soldiers wounded in combat died from their wounds. In the Korean War, the number dropped to about 24%, and held steady at that rate through the Vietnam and Persian Gulf Wars. In the current action in Iraq, the number has dropped dramatically to just under 14%, or one in seven." A 50% drop in death, but over a 60-year timespan. Truly great and wonderful news, unless you are assuming it will occur twice a decade.
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