Medical rigor during the Chaco war

Abstract

This book by Professor Isaías Ricardo Fretes, released in October 2023, covers an extensive gap in national medical history. The fact is that, although the Chaco conflict occurred less than a century ago, our unwritten tradition meant that the testimonies of many of those who personally lived the experiences of field hospitals and the care of the wounded and sick were lost forever. Even in the years after the war, with the country mired in painful internal political confrontations, there were not many conditions for journalistic or historical investigations based on interviews with doctors or students who provided health services on the combat fronts. In reality, it was above all our ancestral orality that overshadowed the knowledge of later generations.