The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-01-28
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN, Director.
Washington, D. c.
A CURE FOR CONNECTION.

A CURE FOR CONNECTION.
Washington, D. c.. Jan. 25.-If any
great catastrophe, physical or mental,
has struck you and left you helpless,
SO that you are unable to pick up your
life and carry it on again, you are the
victim of a new disease with a new
name. You have been commotioned.
The term "commotioned" is one
which scientists have coined to take
the place of the term shell shock" of
which we heard so much during the
war. Every man who had been ner-
tvously or mentslly rather than physi-
cally, injured by the stress of war,
shell-shock. The French. English and
American doctor found toward the end
Of the struggle that they could nearly
always cure a case of shell-shock, pro-
vided the patient was reasonably will
ing to be cured. They did not use
man. and placed him in favorable
| environment to counteract the effects
| of the unfavorable one which had in
jured him.
Civil life, as well as military life,
furnishes many cases of shell-shock.
Since the shocks are not in any way
connected with shells, the new term
has been coined to describe the re-
sultant condition. And these comn1o-
toned individuals of business and in
dustry can be cured just as surely as
the shell-shocked soldier and by the
same means.
Shell shock was a weird and myster-
ious sort of complaint. one that ap-
pealed to the Imagination, new
thing under the sun, and consequently
of much popular interest. As COM
plants in civil life are largely matters
of fashion, so shell shock" became
quite the mode in the army. There
were many cases Of it, and the sur
geons had much opportunity to study
it.
The industries produce daily ex-
amples of people who have been com
motioned. The engineer whose train
plunges thru a bridge may find him
self nervous and unable to work. The
telephone operator who stuck to her
switchboard heroically while the build
ing burned, may have suffered
nervous collapse. She was commo-
toned. The fireman who received an
injury in line of duty may fail of re-
covery because of otner elements than
physical injury. He is suffering from
the newly-named complaint.
Even before the United States came
into the war the Red Cross had
selected a well-known neurologist, DIR.
Tom A. Williams and had sent him
to France to study shell shock. He
worked for year with the French,
studied the methods of the British in
the field and in England, observed
everything that the American army did
in developing its cure for those men
who were broken by the stress of war.
Doctor Williams says that so-called
shell shock, and therefore the suffer-
ing of the commotioned, may be cured.
Those patients who Hnger distressingly
for months and years need not so
| linger The French cured almost a
hundred per cent of their shell-shock
patients. The British learned the les
son less thoroly. The Americans were
| well on the way toward mastering the
problem, and would soon have been.
putting all their broken men back into
the trenches.
The industries have but to take up
the work where the army left off, in
the opinion Of Doctor Williams, to re-
move from their rolls many of those
thousands of injured men and women
to whom they are paying allotmentS.
These men may be restored to normal
and productive lives instead of remain
ing burdens upon their fellows and
drags upon production.
The shell-shock patients in France,
says Doctor Williams, were largely
such because of the psychological con-
ditions into which they were thrown.
They could be cured and in the end
were cured by putting them in the
right frame of mind. The extensive
| advertisement that shell-shock re-
| ceived, he said, was largely response
BILE for many of the men who suffer
ed from it.
A big Bertha might burst in the
midst of a company. The explosion
would be so terrific that many of the
men would be dazed. They would be
found wandering aimlessly about and
would be sent to the rear. They might
find themselves comfortably tucked
| away in hospitals or sent to rest
camps. There they might come to
dwell upon all they had heard of she'll
shock. of the lingering incapacity of
its victims. Consciously or uncon-
sciously their minds would compare
! the ease of the rest camp with the
horror of the front line. If they re-
covered they would go back to the
trenches. If they did not they would
remain in ease and security The in
centive was to exaggerate their broken
condition, to fail to recover.
When the French made their tragic
1917 drive into Lorraine, a whole COM
pany of Alpine Chasseurs struggled
back to a hospital suffering from
shell-shock. They were met by the
manding personality and force. This
officer halted the company, called it
| to attention. reprimanded it, appealed
to its pride in it's fight reputation,
aroused its esprit de corps and sent it
back into the fight. He cured a hun
dred men Of shell-shock in two min
| utes.
The British had a scheme which
worked admirably in less serious
cases. They maintained rehabilitation
camps into which men who were re-
covering from any sort of disability
were put. In these camps the British
love of sport was given full rein. There
were games of all sorts and the spirit