Ww1 Soldiers Trauma Essay

With war there comes trauma, and not all the casualties of war experience only physical symptoms. It was during World War I that soldiers’ mental trauma became more popularly examined. We now know that traumatic events can leave someone experiencing PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Back in 1914, soldiers fighting in the war had their own version called “shell shock”.
In the beginning of World War I, British soldiers began to report medical symptoms after combat such as amnesia, headaches, dizziness, tremors, and hypersensitivity to noise. These symptoms were seen and expected in soldiers after a physical wound to their brains, but many who reported these symptoms showed no sign of head trauma. These soldiers had both physical and mental symptoms from their time at battle. It was estimated that by the end of 1914, 7-10% of all officers and 3-4% of other ranks in …show more content…
As the number of shell shock cases grew, doctors were trying to find an explanation for this phenomenon. Some believed it was a result of cerebral lesions in the brain from shock waves of bursting shells that caused these symptoms. Another explanation was the soldiers were poisoned by the carbon monoxide formed by explosions in battle. Doctors, and especially Army and government officials, wanted to know what was wounding their soldiers so they could understand better about what was happening. The cases where soldiers encountered the violence that comes with war firsthand were more easily understood as causes of shell shock. It was those men who experienced it without physical battle that were stumping researchers. War psychiatrists battled over competing values and conflicts of conscience rather than the welfare of patients per se. But when doctors, like Myers, recognized that they were dealing with mental, psychological, and emotional trauma, they could better learn how to