Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-08-02
MEMORIES Of WAR
"A. !. .bI|IF|:FL|CT VETERANS
Nervous and Mental Cases
!. Increase; U. S. Doctors
Tell Hague Farley.


3 The. long shadow of the world war
StEIl falls over the minds of these who
fought its battles
The open wounds in the riinds OF
men formed a principle topic of discus
sion at the International Congress OF
Military Medicine just concluded at The
Hegue, complete reports OF which nave
Just been received by the Public Health
Service.
In the United states alone, DR.. Philip
B. Metz of the United states Veterans
Bureau told the military doctors, the
number of veterans afflicted with ner-
vous and mental diseases Is increasing
at such a rate that, statistical studies
pRoximately $4,000 cases. This Is more
than double the number now on the
books Of the Veterans Bureau. The
studies undertaken to forecast the flu
tlYe need of hospital space, DR.. Metz
said, indicate that the increase IN in
sanity among ex-service men is being
accelerated with age.
Initial Weakness Blamed.
In few cases. army doctors from the
various allied nations insisted, were the
experiences of war solely responsible for
the mental breakdowns, but the terrors
and memories of battle act on nervous
systems which were unstable at the
start. This condition among the
French veterans was emphasized by
Col Fribourg- Blanc of the French Army,
who, declared that the nervous system,
instead of becoming irnmunized to re-
nGated emotional shocks of terror, APP
pafently becomes more susceptible.
Each such experience increases the fear
Of the next one of the same kind, ana
this condition has continued long after
the war.
What Col. Fribourg- Blanc called the
.'syndrome post emotionelle," which
followed some frightful experience on
the battlefield and was characterized
BY mental confusion, Discrimination, in
coherent speech and outbursts of weep
ing or laughter. still persists in the
French hospitals. he said. 1t tends to
become intensified, little by little. The
neurasthenia. or nervous exhaustion
caused by the war life, often left per-
uaanert effects, he said. Many cases OF
paranoia with systematic decisions made
up entirely Of war memories still are
coming to French hospitals, he said.
Says Many Shirk Reality.
DR.. Smith Ely Jeliffe, noted American
psychiatrist, told the Congress that
There still are distributed through all
the States of the Union an ever present
horde of the manned, the battered and
memories, often deliberately forced out
Of conscious memory, by no means are
completely represented by those actually
under treatment, he declared. They
show UP in a lowered morale which
prevents many veterans from getting
the most possible out of life. The ef-
feet of these memories he compared to
actual wounds of the physical nervous
system which cut 1t of at various levels.
fSUfhnnnI1TOtIr
Jelhffe said, has represented material
which interferes with his reaching the
high state of morale. His resistances
keep him always on the alert. Sick
ness is an asset unconSciously arrived
at. Malingering as a diagnosis Is worth
less. but it is itself an illness not ex-
planned by the epithe6. The war residual
has come to live his life apart. His
tendency to permit himself to be hos
pitalized is a part of his withdrawal
from the world Of reality"
Hypochrondriacs Increase.
Some Of the remote effects of the
war on American veterans we're pre-
Serted before the Congress by Majs.
Patrick S. Madigan, G. G. odom and
William G. Porter of the United States
Army Medical Corps. They pointed out
that the number of hypochondriacS, who
always claim to be sick without any
organic basis for their complaints, was
small during the war itself but now is
quite large among the veterans. This
condition is seldom conscious malinger-
ing, they explained. The men actually
feel sick, although the generis of the
condition is found in the accepted mill
tafy doctrine that a sick man cannot
be expected to fight or work
Thus, they pointed out factors which
ordinarily inhibit visceral sensations
from coming into consciousness have
been so weakened that the patient is
acutely aware of all of them. With
any emotional experience he is likely
to become sick at the stomach.
- Finds Fatigue" Common.
I'm the postwar neuroses, whose
number Is increasing tremendously to
this day." says the report of these Off
GERS, THE attitude of the Government
toward the veterans has contributed a
great deal, however praiseworthy it
to do Justice 1t has placed premium
ON invalidisn and economic depend
eR1ce, of which the weakling has taken
advantage. The scope of compensation
and disqualification legislation has been
steadily enlarged. This, to the indi-
vidual who is constitutionally inferior
and has acquired psychopathic view
point, Is a suggestion that ne Will nave
to be sick to receive benefits. The
habit of work soon becomes replaced
by a habit of dependence on others
for a livelihood. To excuse himself in
his own eyes and in the eyes Of the
world he must have symptoms, and
these are not wanting.
I'm both war and peacetime the chief
condition appears to be fatigue, a COM
plaint particularly common in the post
war neurotic. The protective quality of
such a state is apparent"