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The book brings together the conclusions which Col. Mott has derived not only from extensive clinical observations, but also from much original anatomical research relating to the effects of Shell Shock and Gas Poisoning upon the central nervous system. Col. Mott is concerned to show that the majority of cases of so-called "Shell Shock" are truly "Emotional Shock." He illustrates his argument by comparative statistics. It has been calculated that one-seventh of all the soldiers who have been discharged from the army as permanently unfit, or one-third of the unwounded, are cases of Shell Shock, War Neurosis or Psychosis. Col. Mott points out that the War Neuroses present no essential clinical differences from those met with in prewar days. They belong to the two great groups of functional nervous diseases--hysteria and neurasthenia--the symptoms being the same, but coloured by war experiences. Numbers of illustrations are given which show that the psycho-pathology of war "consists fundamentally in the exaggeration and perseveration of instinctive defence reactions incidental to normal physiological conditions, viz. protective pain, fatigue, and the emotion of fear." Col. Mott develops the argument that fear is a biological instinct, and emphasises the enormous importance of contemplative fear in the perseveration of hysterical paralysis, contractures, and speech defects. Now that hostilities have ceased, and the idea of return to an intolerable situation has been removed, large numbers of these cases should spontaneously recover. Still, a large number of discharged men suffering from functional disabilities are in receipt of pensions, and Col. Mott takes the view that the receipt of a pension suggests permanence of the disability. It is, he points out, a well-established fact that the effective mode of cure of hysterical manifestations is contra-suggestion, and he concludes that every effort should be made to induce such men to take up suitable employment, and that no man should be discharged with a curable functional disability and without the prospect of employment. In the Chapter on Treatment attention is called to the value of occupation as a mental diversion, and graduated employment on the land and in the workshop is strongly advocated as a means of promoting convalescence. The importance of establishing an atmosphere of cure in a hospital is emphasised, and music, including training in singing, is strongly recommended as a means of restoring health to mind and body. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

War neuroses.

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"The material of this book was the subject of a paper originally published in the Psychoanalytic quarterly (vol. i, nos. 3-4), under the title, 'The bioanalysis of the epileptic reaction' ... The book ... is appearing in another edition in the Psychosomatic medicine monographic series."

War neuroses. --- Traumatic neuroses.

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"I wish you could be here," the Oxford Professor of Medicine wrote to a friend in 1915, "in this orgy of neuroses and psychoses and gaits and paralyses. I cannot imagine what has got into the central nervous system of the men."A War of Nerves is a history of military psychiatry in the twentieth century - an authoritative, accessible account drawing on a vast range of diaries, interviews, medical papers and official records. It reaches back to the moment when the technologies of modern warfare and the disciplines of mental medicine first confronted each other on the Western Front, and traces their uneasy relationship through the eras of 'shell-shock', combat fatigue and 'post-traumatic stress disorder'. At once absorbing historical narrative and intellectual detective story, it tells the full story of 'shell-shock'; explains the disastrous psychological aftermath of Vietnam; and shows how psychiatrists kept men fighting in Burma. But it also tries to answer recurring questions about the effects of war. Why do some men crack and others not? Are the limits of resistance determined by character, heredity, upbringing, ideology or simple biochemistry? It explores the ethical dilemmas of the military psychiatrist - the 'machine gun behind the front', as Freud called him. Finally, it looks at the modern culture of 'trauma' and compensation spawned by the Vietnam War. A War of Nerves offers the general reader an indispensable guide to an important and controversial subject.

Military psychiatry --- Soldiers --- War neuroses

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War neuroses --- War --- History --- Psychological aspects

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War neuroses. --- Peacekeeping forces --- Mental health.