The “torpillage” neurologists of World War I: Electric therapy to send hysterics back to the front, 2010, Tatu et al.

[SNT Gatchaman]

The “torpillage” neurologists of World War I: Electric therapy to send hysterics back to the front
Laurent Tatu; Julien Bogousslavsky; Thierry Moulin; Jean-Luc Chopard

The French neurologists and psychiatrists who were mobilized during the Great War were confronted with numerous soldiers with war neuroses, often with novel clinical manifestations such as camptocormia. They addressed hysteria and pithiatism according to concepts that had been formed before the war, and many doctors considered these soldiers to be malingerers. As a result, the use of aggressive therapies to enable their prompt return to the battlefront was advocated.

In 1915–1916, Clovis Vincent (1879–1947) developed a method called torpillage, a “persuasive” form of psychotherapy using faradic and galvanic electric currents, to treat soldiers with “intractable” neuroses. However, since the treatment was painful, soldiers began to refuse it and, following a publicized trial, the method was discontinued. Given the influx of soldiers with seemingly incurable neuroses, Gustave Roussy (1874–1948) made an attempt in 1917 to develop a new method of psychoelectric treatment. In January 1918, he too came up against soldiers refusing electric treatment. Following a new trial and an unfavorable press campaign, the psycho-faradic method gradually died out.

These extreme medical practices developed to treat psychological trauma during the First World War subsequently led to the delineation of posttraumatic stress disorder in more recent wars.

Link | PDF (Neurology)

 

[SNT Gatchaman]

Military doctors had differing opinions on the nature of these disorders, some attributing them to nervous system lesions, others viewing them as psychological disorders, but many believing sufferers to simply be malingerers looking to escape their combat duties. Suspicions of malingering partly derived from the opinions formed about hysteria in the years preceding the war.

At the end of the 19th century, Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893) introduced the notion of traumatic hysteria, but between 1901 and 1908 Joseph Babinski (1857–1932) cast doubt on his mentor’s ideas, transforming hysteria into a purely functional illness in which suggestion played a critical role and where malingering was not clearly differentiated. Hysteria then became known as pithiatism, a word composed of Greek roots meaning “curable by persuasion.”

 

[Mithriel]

Of course, in recent years they have had the tools to show the damage of percussive injuries in the brain.

If any war was likely to cause shaking in the brain it was WW1 with its constant bombardments.

 

[rvallee]

Of course, in recent years they have had the tools to show the damage of percussive injuries in the brain.

If any war was likely to cause shaking in the brain it was WW1 with its constant bombardments.

The impacts of severe hits in contact sports is also starting to be known, although it's similarly denied and trivialized because of liability. Many professional athletes never enjoy the spoils of their earnings because the rest of their life is severely limited by the problems they carry, sometimes from their playing days pushing through the pain. Many die young.

A recent report of "enforcer" types of players in pro hockey, mostly players who would fight, had a life span 10 years shorter than their peers. And that's just mortality, the degree of morbidity is absurd.

There is no question that what WWI soldiers endured was far worse. The idea that those suffering had weak character is so damn insulting. This is entirely "I would have no problem being waterboarded every single day since it doesn't hurt or cause injury" energy. It's so easy to judge others when you are safe from the harm they endured.