Society

Shell shock

The term, first published in the medical journal The Lancet by the doctor and psychologist Charles Myers in 1915, for a psychological breakdown caused by bombardment and the strain of combat, with symptoms such as tremors, paralysis, mutism and blank stares. Some sufferers were treated with sympathy, as at Craiglockhart, and others were punished for cowardice; it is now understood as a form of post-traumatic stress.

Mentioned in

• Chapter VIII The Reckoning and the Remaking §1 The Dead, the Maimed and the Flu
• Chapter IX In the Trenches Overview§7 Shell Shock, Courts-Martial and the Men Who Were Shot
• Chapter XII The Home Fronts §9 Culture, Art and the Making of Memory