Military medicine has historically led the way. Much of what we know about nutrition and exercise comes from the concerns on how to get and keeps troops healthy. The military also led the way in infectious disease control because when you assemble an army the last thing you want is for them to get sick or drop dead from disease. Food safety was a big problem in this nation but only after it became clear that more troops died from food poisoning than combat in the Mexican-American war did the powers that be get around to creating the USDA and clean up the food supply.

A long time ago the standard treatment for wounds was to sear the wounds with boiling 'wound oil'. Imagine walking into an ER and finding hot irons and boiling oil. That was the state of the art. During one battle the number of wounded was so great that they ran out of oil. So the surgeon told the orderlies to clean the wounds with clean water and to apply wet compresses. When he returned the surgeon was surprised to find this treatment was more effective than boiling oil, shocking.

The first X-ray machines were used in the Boer war. Before then they used long metal rods to find slugs and shrapnel. A good number of wounded died from probes puncturing vital organs and the process was often very painful and traumatic.

I used to see a doctor who got his training in Vietnam. He said it changes his life and was the best education available. In normal life, a time before trauma centers, a doctor might only see a major trauma case every year or so. He operated on several a day for a year. He saw and did more in one year than most doctors did in their entire career.

Soldiers also make good study subjects. They are young, healthy and their histories are well documented. When a treatment program is decided upon the treatments are fairly uniform, surgical teams can do the same procedure the same way many times, and patient compliance is high.

Yes, soldiers do get used, to some extent, as guinea pigs. But they both suffer from and benefit from being experimental subjects. For better and worse soldiers which were considered 'basket cases' in earlier times are routinely saved.