Evening star., 1941-09-06
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook of Science Progress
In Laboratory, Field
And Study
By Thomas r. Henry.
the last war 1t was Shell shock"

In the last war it was shell shock"
Now 1t is effort syndpme"-a curious
kind of brain-heart malacy which in
capacitates men for military service.
There has been lot of it in the
British forces in the past few months.
Majs E. T. Witthower, T. r. Rodger and
A. T. Macbeth of the Royal Medical
Corps have made study of so cases
40 enlisted men and 10 officers and non-
comS-With the aid of a Rockefeller
Foundation grant.
They have just reported their findings
in the Lancet, journal of the British
Medical Association. Examination of
the records shows that every tenth heart
case admitted to military hospitals in
the last war displayed the same symp-
toms, although the condition was not
recognized at the time
A victim of the malady shows extreme
breathlessness and fatigue on slight
effort. There is disturbance in the pulse
rate, dizziness, occasional fainting spells,
blurred vision, pain in the chest, numb
ness in the limbs. In many ways 1t is a
classical shell shock picture.
Physical examination shows little.
Usually there is nothing wrong with the
hearts or lungs. The patients seldom
have been exposed to any great danger.
They respond slowly, If at all, to treat
ment. 1t usually is necessary to dis
charge them from the army. Some of
them, the medical officers report. "are
a greater menace than typhoid carriers"
From intensive psychological study of
the men they derive curious mental
picture. Most of them, they were con-
vinced, are not takers and have no
conscious intention of escaping from the
service. They found, however, that
large proportion of their cases had had
a common upbringing in extremely strict
and usually religious homes. They had
an exaggerated sense of duty and often
an exaggerated patriotism. They were
subconSciously worried over failure to
live up to their own conceptions of duty.
Through a complex mental mechanism
this leads to the symptoms of the effort
syndrome.
The condition is closely related, the
English Army doctors believe, to two
common physical conditions which are
known to have mental basis-gastric
ulcer and collitis. The former condition,
they say, is most apt to appear in a
person who is worried about making a
living, the latter in a stingy person who
is worried about poverty The physical
ref1eXes of worry over duty apparently
fall into the same pattern.
They found a close parallel to another
widespread mental condition-claustro-
phobia, or fear of inclosed places. This
is probably, they believe, the reason for
the breathleSsness. The victims sub
consciously are fighting an imagined
suffocation. They suffer intensely from
wearing gas masks and many of them,
when questioned, admit the pathological
fear.
That there is little actual physical
WEAKNESS is shown by experiments with
hypnosis. Effort syrdrome patients,
when hypnotized, are asked to re-
enact their most terrifying experiences.
They do so with extreme realism They
are awakened Immediately and appear
less tired than before.
Nothing is to be done for such patients
except for a long course of mental
therapy, the doctors believe.
A small number of the effort syn
drome victims are almost conscious
takers, they believe, who "are trying to
t@nl iy9l SIn n1yn ~
physical symptoms" In spite of the
deception which can almost be proven,
they say, these men never can be made
satisfactory soldiers and had better be
discharged. Their hysteria may be con-
tagious to the rest of the army.
y
, new kind of shock, almost invariably
fatal. is appearing in England.
1t manifests itself in uremic poisoning
several days after a person has been
rescued from beneath the ruins of q
bombed building and apparently is en-
tirely recovered from any injuries re-
ceived.
1t is, says the latest journal of the
Royal Army Medical Corps just received
here, "a part of the new civilization
associated with an advancing science,
and is produced directly by the brain
of man" The condition, the army doc
tors say, is new to medical records.
Thus far six cases have been reported.
A typical one is that of a 17-year-old
boy who was pinned down by three dead
bodies under timber. and rubble for IA
hours before he was discovered by a
rescue party. He had suffered badly
bruised leg, but no particular exposure.
Mentally, of course, the experience was
extremely terrifying.
The boy showed some symptoms OF or
dinary shock when brought to hospital
and a blood plasma TRANSMISSION was
given. He appeared to recover COM
pletely. A few days later the more seri-
Gus symptoms we're found. There was
an abnormal amount of urea in the
blood stream The red cell content of
the blood was increased and in the kid
neys was found something that looked
like blood, but contained no free iron.
The other cases are similar except for
details of the experience.