No Shell Shock?

During the War many an able soldier suffered from "shell shock." After hours of bombardment men would become madly hysterical. Exploding shells would throw men through the air or bury them under debris. Afterwards, many with no outward sign of injury would be paralyzed or gibbering. The mystifying aspect of "shell shock" was that the functional disturbance was often in a part of the body far from the obvious injury. Pathologists eventually found that the nerves governing the disturbed part usually were subtly distorted. Recovery from shell shock was slow. Many a case still persists, 13 years after the War's end.

Nonetheless the International Congress of Military Medicine & Pharmacy which met last month at The Hague, decided that war of itself does not cause shell shock. According to Dr. Francis Eustace Fronczak who last week returned to Buffalo where he has been health officer since 1910, the conference decided "that a terrific bombardment has little effect on the nerves of a normal person. Shell shock is not caused by war. It is a neurotic trouble which has lain dormant and has been aggravated by war."

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