WWI "shell-shock" cases on film

The Wellcome Trust has put some extraordinary films from its medical archive on YouTube, and also on its own site, Wellcome Film: 450 films, 100 hours of viewing, make up a strange and, in some cases, terrifying history of medical experiment and treatment.

I've been watching a film made in 1917-18 of shell-shock victims being treated in British military hospitals. "War Neuroses" follows the cases of 18 private soldiers, starting with Private Meek, who suffers from amnesia, hysterical paralysis, spasms and loss of speech and feeling, and Private Preston, who has lost the ability to recognise any words, except for "bomb", which makes him dive under a bed.

In most cases the film shows partial or complete recovery, sometimes in a ridiculously short time: a caption reads "two and a half hours later" and you see the subject apparently cured. By the time the film was made, sufferers from combat stress were unlikely to be shot as deserters but there was still disagreement over whether its cause was physical or psychological - "commotional shock as opposed to emotional shock" - and many medical professionals were far from sympathetic.

Under the headline "Shell shock or 'shell shy'", The Times reported on a meeting at the BMI where Colonel Mott, a neurologist from the Maudsley section of London Hospital, read an address on "war neuroses".

"In no previous war," he said, "had there been such a vast number of men disabled by functional nervous disease. The conditions of this war, on the other hand, were without precedent both as regards severity of strain and the length of time of exposure to it."

1915 and 1916 had been the worst years, "when men were unrelieved for weeks and when they were continually on the defensive, out-manned and out-gunned".

A particular problem of this war had been that most soldiers had been conscripted, rather than volunteers, although this was, of course, of interest to medicine:  

a conscripted army included all sorts and conditions of men. We had found out by the immense number of soldiers discharged from the Service as permanently unfit what a large proportion of the male population of a highly civilized country possesses a neurotic predisposition. In 1917 one-third of the unwounded and one-seventh of the total discharges including the wounded were permanently unfit on account of functional, nervous, or mental diseases.

In Mott's view, the war had produced no new nervous disease. It was "the same hysteria and neurasthenia" that existed in peace time - except, understandably, there was more of it about. While some cases had suffered actual physical damage, through brain injuries which would come to light only in post mortems, the over-riding cause was simply fear.

"I have seen," [Mott] declared, "both hysteria and neurasthenia arise from the fear of conscription, or, having been conscribed, an hysterical crisis, contracture, or paralysis has occurred when it became known that the conscript would be in a draft for general service abroad."

Comments

[John Swaby-Miller]

I have just been reading the Archive blog on the 6th Nov 09 and watched the video about shell-shocked soldiers.
In the opening shot, it says 'War Neuroses', Netley 1917.....and underneath, 'Seale Hayne Military Hospital'. 1918.

My querry is, I went to Seale Hayne Agricultural College, in Newton Abbot, Devon. To my knowlege it was never a hospital..(.I could be wrong) Is there anyone who can confirm this as it would be most interesting to know..Seale Hayne is not a common name...and Netley is near Southampton.

[Rose Wild]

Thanks for the query John. It seems the college was turned over to being a hospital for a couple of years after the First World War. I've done some more digging and found this News in Brief from April 23, 1918:

Major A. F. Hurst, formerly physician at Guy's Hospital, and recently in charge of the neurological section at Netley hospital, has been appointed officer in charge of Seale-Hayne Military Iospital, the college having now been taken over for soldiers suffering from shell-shock and other nervous affections.

There's also a contemporary report on the hospital's work - rather starry-eyed - and it does seem to reflect what's going on in the film. Read it here: http://bit.ly/3GkEFW

[camilla osborne]

If you are interested in Netley Hospital, you might like to know that there is a very good book on the subject : "Spike Island" by Philip Hoare.