The battlefield can be a laboratory for assessing response of the human body to stress. Although scenes may differ, from musket volleys to a shattering car bomb, effects to the body and psyche are similar. "Every war stimulates medical research. It is sad, but true," says Frank Freemon, a semiretired neurologist from Vanderbilt University who earned a PhD in history at age 54 and is an authority on the Civil War.1
As recently as the last Gulf War in 1990–1991, health effects of combat were assessed in fuzzy hindsight. That approach is changing, beginning with symptom chronicling among troops now in Iraq and Afghanistan. And future soldiers may wear bio-monitoring outfits that will provide valuable new types of information based on real-time measurements.
"Tools embedded in soldiers' clothing and watch-like meters to monitor vital signs and exposures will allow us to know what an exposure is with much more certainty ...
