Vernon Parish Democrat. (Leesville, La.) 1917-193?, 1921-08-04
COMMITTEE HEARS ABOUT THE
PITIFUL CASES IN TWO Gov
EMINENT HOSPITALS.
WORSE OFF THAN WOUNDED
Target Practice With Big Guns Drives
Them Into Hysterleal Condition
Their Treatment, Being Indirect, Is
Difficult and Tedious.
By EDWARD 3. CLARK.

/
invalided soldiers of the great war
have been told by a BinghamptOn, N.
Y, Witness that the shell-shOck pa
tents in the hospitals at Perryville,
Nd, and at Fort Thomas, KY, are
driven into a condition of hysteria
every time there is target practice
with the big guns at the nearby gov
eminent posts.
One veteran of the great war told
the committee that he had expended
over $4,000 for medical service in an
attempt to recover from the effects
of shell shock. Attention is being
| called more sharply day by day to the
condition of men who suffer from
what is known as shell shock Their
plight seemingly is worse than that
of the men who received actual body
wounds, for direct application and di-
rect manipulation can be used to rem
edy wounds, while what may be called
indirect treatment must be given to
the patient whose nerves were shat
tered or whose mind was unbalanced
by the shocks of the explosions on the
embattled front.
Much has been written about shell
shock by physicians who became ac-
quainted with its manifestations on
the front in France, or who have be-
come acquainted with them since the
shell-shocked ones were returned to
the United States. The layman can
write about shell shock only as a lay
man, but the resulting conditions as
they appear are as plain to a layman
as they are to a physician, although,
of course, the layman cannot look be-
low the surface to discover the seat
of trouble.
In SheII-Shock Hospital.
In 1918, about two months before
the armistice went into effect, | was
detailed as conducting officer for a
party of prominent Americans who
were the guests of the United States
government in the TOul sector which
included the St. Mihiel district and
the lines north of it where the Amer
leans were locked with the Germans
after the salient had been captured
by our men.
The army medical authorities had
established a So-called shell-shOck hos
pital some little distance back of the
line. One day took the visitors to
the hospital. 1 had seen shell-shock
patients before, but never after they
had been gathered together in large
numbers for treatment. 1t was most
painfully interesting experience that
the American visitors had that day
in the hospital.
Few, if any of the patients in this
advanced zone hospital had been
wounded, and yet seemingly their con-
dition was worse than that of any
wounded man. Most Of them were
up and about, and some of them as
they walked up and down the wards
of the hospital were lodging imagi-
nary shells at every step they took.
Others were waving their arms in the
air, and still others were lifting their
feet at least foot from the ground
at each step taken.
One of the hospital stewards told
me that at three o'clock on the morn
ing of the day that we arrived at the
hospital, an automobile tire had ex-
ploded just outside one Of the build
ings with a loud report. Instantly,
he said, three-fOurths of the patients
in the hospital jumped from their beds
and fled through the doors into the
darkness. 1t took some time to round
them up, to get them back to their
quarters and to quiet them.
Worse Than Wounds.
Now the patient who is suffering
from a malady resulting from shock
is just as much a wounded man in a
sense as one who has been hit by a
bullet, only his case is the more pitt
full. Shell shock seems to have re-
suited from a sort of paralysis of the
nerve centers of men whose nerves
were diseased before they entered the
war. A man with diseased nerves is
just as much sick man as a man
who has typhoid fever. The only trou-
BILE is in peace times the trouble is
not easily detected, and as a result
many men with nerves in poor order
were sent to the front.
There they stood under the firing
of the shells uninjured and yet unable,
although they tried hard, to make
their nerves stand the shock of the
conditions. Some of them under strain
fell down unconscious, and were
picked up and carried to the rear
where restoration to consciousness oc-
casiOnally was the work of hours.
Others retained consciousness and vet
seemed to be incapable of well-direct-
ed action. Their nerves were gone
and had been gone before they en-
tered the fight.