Triage: Napoleon to the present day.

Triage, the sorting of patients according to the severity of their injuries and the need for urgent surgery was a concept developed by Dr. Larrey, a military surgeon in Napoleon's army. The evolution of the concept in military medicine from that time to the present is described. Triage in civilian practice first became a serious issue with the development of dialysis for chronic renal failure in the 1960s and the problem of the allocation of this scarce and very expensive treatment. With new developments in organ transplantation and technology it continues to be an issue today.