Neuroses in war-time : memorandum for the information of the medical profession / Ministry of Pensions.

Date:
1940
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Neuroses in war-time : memorandum for the information of the medical profession / Ministry of Pensions. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    (c) nervous and mental exhaustion, the result of proloriged strain and hardship. (3) Authorities are agreed that in the great majority of (chronic) cases of war neuroses there already existed a congenital or acquired predisposition to excessive and therefore patho- logical reaction in the individual concerned, and that this constitutional factor was of vast importance. It appears equally certain that the neuroses of war may manifest themselves even in those of sound nervous ™ constitution provided stress be sufficiently severe and/or prolonged. (4) No cases of psycho-neurosis or of mental breakdown, even when attributed to shell explosion or the effects thereof, should be classified as a battle casualty any more than sickness or disease is so recorded. (5) The following factors are generally regarded as tending to increase the incidence and severity of mental and nervous disorders in time of war. (a) All those factors by which a soldier, or even a potential soldier, is encouraged to believe that the weakening or loss of mental control provides an honourable avenue of escape from military service at whatever period of his service. (b) The ignorance of the general community, both civil and military, together with a lack of interest evinced by the medical profession before the war regarding the origin, nature and significance of mental, and especially emotional, disorders. (c) All those preventable conditions which undermine a man’s mental and physical health and lower the power of resistance, e.g., bad sanitation, bad accom- modation, abuse of alcohol and drugs, venereal disease, etc. In promoting and maintaining morale, good food, good housing; recreational relaxation and attention to the comfort and well-being of the soldier are of the greatest service. __ | (d) The introduction and perpetuation of the term “* shell shock.” (e) The employment of such terms as “ N.Y.D.N.”, *D.A.H.” or other designation which may become catchwords and thereby lead to an increase in the number of cases. It is important that cases of concussion should be differentiated oD
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