The Times history and encyclopaedia of the war. Part 87, vol. 7. Apr. 18, 1916, Shell shock and nervous injuries.

Date:: 1916

Credit: The Times history and encyclopaedia of the war. Part 87, vol. 7. Apr. 18, 1916, Shell shock and nervous injuries. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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oe mn «a ets: a great part in the solution of its medical problems. This was very apparent in regard to the poisoned wounds which began to show themselves in such terrible abundance; it was no less apparent in regard to the nervous affections which resulted from the explosion of heavy shells. These nervous affections indeed constituted a huge problem from the very outset. They were exceedingly frequent, exceedingly varied, and exceedingly severe. They represented a phenomenon which, if it was not new, was, at any rate, very unfamiliar to the majority of the doctors who encountered it. In the wars of the past a certain amount of trouble had arisen as the result of the explosions of shells, but this trouble had never been of a really serious character. Here, on the contrary, was a force which killed without injuring, which seemed to unseat the mind itself, and to deprive a man of all his faculties while yet not a scratch could be detected upon his skin. The first warning of a really impressive kind which the world received regarding this new and terrible factor in warfare came in the form of a strange rumour which was in circu- Jation at the time of the Battle of the Marne. The rumour~had several forms, but in its essence it told the same story. Dead men, it » said, had been found standing in the trenches, apparently in possession of their faculties. Every normal attitude of life was imitated by these dead men; their bodies were found posed in all manner of positions, and the illusion was so complete that often the living would speak to the dead before they realized the true state of affairs. When this rumour first became current, the explanation was offered that these men had been “ asphyxiated’ by a new type of shell. The explanation revealed the fact that at that period a purely physical reason was regarded as necessary ; doctors and the public at large had not then taken into consideration tle possibility that the cause of death might be mental rather than physical. The asphyxia explanation did not survive long, for soon a great deal of new evidence regarding the effects of high explosive shells accumulated. Thus men were brought aown

The Times history and encyclopaedia of the war. Part 87, vol. 7. Apr. 18, 1916, Shell shock and nervous injuries.

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