The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1919-01-31
GOOD, SOUND SENSE WILL
CURE SHELL SHOCK
(By Margaret L. Farrand)

(By Margaret L. Farrand)
He isn't a coward and he isn't a
much-abused hero put out of the run
ming for life by the war; he's just a
mar who has played the game and had
an extra tough time in the process.
He can forget all about the tough
time, if you will only let him, and
settle down into a contented, useful
citizen. He is what is popularity, and
enormously, called a s~hell-shocked SOL
der. You will understand him a great
deal better if you cure yourself of the
idea that there is such a thing as shell
shock and realize that the she'll
shocked soldier is simply a man who
became %nervously overweight to the
breaking point, and snapped. 1t is
about as intelligent to say that a man
gets shell shocked from being knocked
down by the explosion of a shell as it
is to say that the war was caused by
the hurting of a bomb in Servajo. That
bomb was an immediate and not a fun
damental cause, and though the i'm
mediate cause Of the "shell-shock" may
be a shell, it may also be a row with
your captain or a gloomy letter from
home.
But first of all we must stop calling
it shell shock. So far the doctors have
offered no better substitute than ner-
vousness and neurasthenia, so we are
obliged to content ourselves with
those. Nervous breakdown is not so
very far from wrong, though that is
a dangerous term to play with, too.
Neurasthenia comes from the cumu-
lative effect Of hard work and excite
ment, cold and sleeplessness and hun
ger, the anxiety due to the constant
presence of danger and death in the
abnormal, exhausting life of the
trenches. Sometimes with a nervous,
highly strung individual, it comes be-
fore the mar has gone into the tren-
ches at all, simply from apprehension
and worry about what is ahead of
him. The man is exhausted, nervous,
strained to the limit; then the shell
bursts and his taut nerves snap. He
becomes trembling, nervous, shaky
excited, fearful, or the neurosis may
manifest itself in paralysis or partia
paralysis of an arm or leg or hand.
This paralysis is a curious phenom'
enon. 1t occurs often in a totally un'
injured member and a skillful physi
clan must half coax, half trick thu
{ man into using it again. Ninety-nint
and nine-tenths per cent of such a
. es are durable. In occasional instan
ces where the mar is taking he sool
learns the doctor sees through hin
> and gives up the bluff. In the ma
e jority of cases he honestly wants t.
be cured, but even when he is apathet
ic and indifferent it can be cured.
None, or practically none, of thes
r men will be dismissed from the hos
). pitfalls in France and sent home unit;
they are cured. When they do &c
l home, however, there is danger of
e relapse if their relatives and friend
fail to treat them in a reasonable mar
ner. If you taunt Jim with being
coward because he was sent back t
the hospital and spent weeks the1
:. without being wounded at all, Jim
likely to have a relapse so that he ca
let you see just how serious a thin
. neurasthenia is. On the other han
d if you receive Jim with tears and Ii
n mentation, if you commiserate him {
the terrible strain he has gone throue
or if you keep wondering how lor
that paralyzed arm will stay in wor
ing order, Jim is only human, the ar
e. is more than likely to become pare
yzed again. Don't consider jim eth
~ with pity or as a coward, treat hi
like a man.
The American doctors in France a
az getting a little worried lest people
ys the United States should not recel
Jim in the right way, so the Americ
Red Cross is sending a medical m
ny or two wei to America to speak a
ny write on the subject. 1t is a matt
O. for physicians rather than for Ia
III men, but you can help your partlf
lar Jim, when he comes home, by g
ing him a fair chance.
ry