TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14985, 4 June 1914, Page 8

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Shock. The pitiful tales which wo are rending daily of the dazod, sometimes halfdemented survivors of the terrible catastrophe in tho St. Lawrence, mako us ask the questions: Do such stricken survivors of such a disaster ever get over the shock ? Do they ever completely recover their equanimity ? Or ' is* the impression left on the brain by the few frightful minutes indelible ?A doctor who writes in iljo "Gorman Medical Weekly" has given considerable attention to this question of tho results of shock, and has made a personal examination of numbers of survivor. l , from great disasters, particularly the earthquakes at Valparaiso and Messina, tho explosions in tho Courriores and Radbod mines, and the railway collision at Mulheim. At Gourrieres, a rescued miner wandered about the country for two days and nights, quito insane, having not the least recollection of anything that had occurred. At Messina, on the morning after the earthquake, a man was seen in his nightshirt peacefully watering the garden of his half-ruinod houso from a can. -One woman lay iv bed without stirring for 72 hours after the catastrophe. Her child died by her side, but she did not appear to notice. She had received no physical injury. A curious example of the upsetting f the mental equilibrium by the shock is the unnatural cheerfulness which many survivors who have lest valuable property or some dear relative or friend display. Thus after the railway accident at Mulheim a woman who had only received some .light injuries herself had so far forgotten ihe death of a dearly-loved son that she was able to joke over *.he accident. Tfco apathy displayed by survivors usually forms a striking contrast with the excitement j of their rejoicing friends. As, a nil* ! these'a re hit the first effects. Th. doctor who has collected these instances says that iv mast cases recovery was effected in a few days. But there wero other cases where for weeks after survivors' suffered from accesses of violent panic which made them leap from their beds and rush about the houtJe withou*. any reason. Instances of this kind were frequenc after the Messina and Courri_res disaster-. Six months was the "shock limit" of most, of the Messina cases examined by tbe German ob-

server. Permanent cases of mental de rangement lie has fouud to be rare.