Neuropsychiatry and the warWar Work Committee, the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, Incorporated, 1918 - 292 pages |
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alcohol aphonia army base hospitals brain cause cent centers central nervous system cerebral civil clinical pictures concussion contracture convalescent cure dementia praecox developed diagnosis disability discharge disorders disturbances duty effects enlistment epilepsy epileptics etiological etiological factor examination exhaustion expeditionary experience explosion faradic fatigue frequent front headache hyperesthesia hysteria hysterical important individual injury insane institutions large number lesions Major Salmon malingerers malingering méd medical officers ment mental and nervous mental defectives mental diseases Mental hygiene military hospitals military service motor mutism nerve nervous and mental neurasthenia neurological neurologists neurology and psychiatry neuropathic observed occupation organic lesions paralysis paraplegia paresis parietal bone Paris patient pension physical physician possible predisposition present prognosis psychiatry psychic psychopathic psychoses re-education reflex sensory shell shock shots showed simulation soldiers spinal suffering Surgeon surgical symptoms syndrome tachycardia tion traumatic neurosis treated treatment tremors unfit usually wounded writer
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Page 86 - The psychological basis of the war neuroses (like that of the neuroses in civil life) is an elaboration, with endless variations, of one central theme, escape from an intolerable situation in real life to one made tolerable by the neurosis. The conditions which may make intolerable the situation in which a soldier finds himself hardly need stating. Not only fear, which exists at some time in nearly all soldiers and in many is constantly present, but horror, revulsion against the ghastly duties which...
Page 98 - ... special board by the Board of Survey composed of the neurologists and psychiatrists stationed at the camps. Neuroses are very common among soldiers who have never been exposed to shell fire and will undoubtedly be seen frequently among non-expeditionary troops in this country. In England nearly thirty per cent.
Page 90 - No medico-military problems of the war are more striking than those growing out of the extraordinary incidence of mental and functional nervous diseases ("shell shock"). Together these disorders are responsible for not less than one-seventh of all discharges for disability from the British Army, or one-third if discharges for wounds are excluded. A medical service newly confronted like ours with the task of caring for the sick and wounded of a large army can not ignore such important causes of invalidism.
Page 97 - Although it might be considered more appropriately under the heading of prevention than under that of treatment, the most important recommendation to be made is that of rigidly excluding insane, feebleminded, psychopathic and neuropathic individuals from the forces which are to be sent to France and exposed to the terrific stress of modern war. Not only the medical officers but the line officers interviewed in England emphasized over and over again the importance of not accepting mentally unstable...
Page 97 - Osier, who has had a large experience in the selection of recruits for the British Army and has seen the disastrous results of carelessness in this respect, feels so strongly on the subject that he has recently made his views known in a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association, in which he mentions neuropathic make-up as one of the three great causes for the invariable rejection of recruits. In personal conversation he gave numerous illustrations of the burden which the acceptance...
Page 80 - This also applies to a lesser degree to such teleosts as lack swim-bladders. Dr. SC Ball kindly dissected some of the fishes with swim-bladders which had been killed by the explosions, and found that the swim-bladder had burst, and the tissues were crushed in around it, often breaking the vertebral column of the fish. Moreover, Prof.
Page 15 - A gradual psychic shock from long-continued fear, together with the sudden change from quiet peaceful environment to the extraordinary stress and strain of trench fighting is the chief predisposing cause of war psychoneurosis in soldiers with neuropathic predisposition.
Page 97 - ... of the war most cases, even the most severe, will speedily recover, those who fail to being the constitutionally neurotic and patients who have been so badly managed that very unfavorable habit-reactions have developed. This cheering fact brings little consolation, however, to those who are chiefly concerned with the wastage of fighting men. The lesson to be learned from the British results seems clear — that treatment by medical officers with special training in psychiatry should be made available...
Page 94 - NONEXPEDITIONARY FORCES Facilities for the treatment of neuropsychiatric cases at the camps in the United States have been approved by the Surgeon General and are now being provided. These will undoubtedly prove sufficient for dealing temporarily with mental cases developing in the nonexpeditionary forces. Their final disposition should be made by means of the same mechanism recommended for expeditionary patients who are invalided home except that the functions of the clearing hospitals...
Page 90 - The experience in English hospitals has demonstrated the great danger of aimless lounging, too many entertainments, and relaxing recreations such as frequent motor rides, etc. It must be remembered that "shell-shock" cases suffer from a disorder of will as well as function and it is impossible to effect a cure if attention is directed to one at the expense of the other. As Dr. H. Crichton Miller has put it, "shell shock produces a condition which is essentially childish and infantile in its nature.