Shell shock and its lessons

SHELL SHOCK
Published by the University of Manchester at THE UNIVERSITY PRESS (H. M. McKechnie, Secretary) 12, Lime Grove, Oxford Road, Manchester. Longmans, Green & Co. London: 39, Paternoster Row New York: 443-449, Fourth Avenue and Thirtieth Street Chicago: Prairie Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street Bombay: Hornby Road Calcutta: 6, Old Court House Street Madras: 167, Mount Road
BY G. ELLIOT SMITH, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S. Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Professor of Anatomy AND T. H. PEAR, B.Sc. Lecturer in Experimental Psychology
MANCHESTER AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 12, Lime Grove, Oxford Road LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. London, New York, Bombay, Etc. 1917
PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER No. CXI.
To Major R. G. ROWS, M.D., R.A.M.C.
Our reasons for writing this book will be explained by the book itself. We desire here gratefully to acknowledge the help of several friends who have considerably facilitated our task. Our thanks are due to Major R. G. Rows, M.D., R.A.M.C., for his unfailing interest, encouragement and help; to Captains W. H. R. Rivers, M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., and J. W. Astley Cooper of the R.A.M.C., and Mr. E. Gleaves, M.Sc., for their valuable suggestions and assistance in the preparation of the manuscript; to Captain W. E. Sawers Scott, M.D., R.A.M.C., Dr. Albert Hopkinson and Mr. W. Percy Stocks, F.R.C.S., of Manchester, for help in other ways; and to our colleague, Professor H. Bompas Smith, for reading the proofs and helping us to eliminate some of the more glaring literary defects. To the Editor of the Lancet we are indebted for permission to use part of an article written by one of us. The stream of requests for fuller information and explanation that poured in upon the author of that article made the writing of this book an unavoidable duty.
G. E. S. T. H. P.
The Medical School, The University, Manchester. 20th April, 1917.
Some account of the reasons for the appearance of this book is due to the reader. During the last year we have been asked repeatedly, both by members of the medical profession and the lay public, to write a simple non-technical exposition of the ascertained facts of that malady, or complex of maladies, for which we have adopted the official designation “shell-shock.” Until recently such an attempt would have been premature and largely speculative. But it is now possible to collate the medical reports, not only from our own army, but also from those of France and Russia. Valuable and suggestive data have, furthermore, been obtained from such of the German medical journals as have reached us. The facts described in the various accounts which we have seen are in close agreement. The conclusions in this book, therefore, are not based upon our experience alone.