Shell-shock and other neuropsychiatric problems

A British soldier, 25, a coal miner, had had a bicycle accident five years before, after which he was unconscious for 2½ hours, and gave up work for five weeks, with headaches, fainting-fits, and nervousness ever after and with a tendency to imagine he could see things when there was nothing to be seen.

September 19, 1915, he was under shell fire in trench and dugout. A sergeant and three men working with him were killed by an explosion, and he remembers his cap being lifted off his head. He came to in 46 Rest Camp, some time later, unable to see clearly, or to hear or speak, and with headache and insomnia. He brought a paper from a hospital in France, saying, “Doctor, I had an awful dream last night again; I was dreaming that I was in the trenches; I could see the men falling and the great big shells exploding. I could see the light from the bursting of the shells very plain. They fairly lighted all the place up. I woke up very anxious I can tell you. I wish I could give over dreaming, and I keep having pains in my head right across my eyes.”

October 17, he was heard making inarticulate noises in his sleep. The corporal next him told him about the noises in his half drowsy state; he tried to speak and said, “Mother.” He then felt queer all over, with pain in his head, and afterward became able to talk very well with slight hesitation.

Re spontaneous cures, Elliot Smith and Pear cite the cure of two mutes on hearing that Roumania had entered the war, and the cure of another by seeing Charlie Chaplin’s antics. Some workers (for example, Aimé), treat the functional mutes by simply leaving them to themselves, and maintain that they secure numerous spontaneous recoveries, regarding these as superior to cures by isolation, psychotherapeutic treatment, and the like.