War during the Georgian and Regency eras wasn't pretty, and neither were the wounds and treatments soldiers and sailors suffered in the heat of battle. Even if a soldier survived an injury, there was no guarantee he wouldn't perish from the many infectious diseases that ran rampant through military hospitals. Surgeons were ill-equipped to deal with the mass numbers of wounded, and they did the best they could with the limited knowledge and tools they possessed.

Historic Battlefield Medicine provides an overview of British, American and French army and navy medicine during the late Georgian and Regency eras (1700-1820) from a writer's perspective. Topics include the training and techniques of surgeons, medicines and pain relief, field hospital practices, women's role in medicine, infection and diseases. Firsthand accounts of military surgeons and their patients provide a picture of medicine in the time before antibiotics or anesthesia, and provide authors with the knowledge they need to craft realistic historic scenes or pursue further research.