Report of the War Office Committee of Enquiry into "Shell-shock."
- Great Britain. War Office. Committee of Enquiry into "Shell-shock"
- Date:
- 1922
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of the War Office Committee of Enquiry into "Shell-shock.". Source: Wellcome Collection.
23/226 page 17
![Major .W. J. Adie; MiD.° M.R.C.P., R.A.M.C. (Special Reserve); Physician Great Northern Central Hospital ; Neurologist Min. of Pensions. Another witness (Major Adie), who was asked to tell the Committee what he thought ‘‘ shell shock ’’ was, answered in these terms :— “It seemed to me to cover all the various conditions which ““ have been described as ‘shell shock’ in the late war. ! ‘‘ should say any state of the mind or body engendered or ‘‘ perpetuated by fear, which renders the soldier less efficient ‘“or enables him to evade his duty with impunity. I have ‘* thought about that, and I think we must admit that all these ‘‘ conditions are either engendered by fear, or having been ‘“engendered by something else, such as concussion, are per- ‘‘ petuated by fear. I say ‘renders the soldier less efficient ' ‘“as many of us were suffering more or less from ‘ shell shock,’ ‘“ line; ‘or enabled him to evade his duty with impunity ’“—] | ‘“mean by that that all sorts of people got out of the line with ‘* so-called ‘ shell shock,’ and the result was that they evaded . “ their full duty and yet were not punished.”’ When the witness was asked whether he considered that *’ shell shock ’’ would arise not only in the individual from some strong commotion or emotion, but also in a body of men, he answered that that was certainly so. He instanced two battalions side by — side in a well-known salient in France. In one the morale was good—it had a good colonel and officers and a good medical officer —and they had practically no men going down with “ shell shock.’’ The other battalion was sending ten men away at.a_ time. ‘* You could have foretold that it would be so by looking ‘‘ to the men’s appearance. In the good battalion the men were ‘ always smart, but the others were bad soldiers with bad officers. ‘That is the crux of the matter. Keep up the morale of the ‘“* troops and you will not have emotional ‘ shell shock,’ at least | ‘“ you will reduce it tremendously.’ — This witness, following up Lord Horne’s statement that the result of a blow might cause to any one commotional “ shell shock,’ described his own experience of that form of the disorder. He added ‘“ My opinion is that no man who has simply broken down | “mentally should be given a wound stripe, but the man with ‘“ an obvious commotional shock who has been buried or blown up deserves one. I distinguish rather sharply between the two conditions.”’ . rs 46é ‘“Tiarge numbers of men suffered from hysteria during con. valescence from the various diseases for which they had been admitted to hospital. They all received the same sort of treat- ment by rapid—what I might call Queen Square methods. The most frequent symptom was aphonia. During one period I used 46 ENG 46 “$6](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3217777x_0023.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
