SOLDIERS' NERVES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 235, 30 June 1919, Page 4

SOLDIERS' NERVES

STRANGE SUGGESTIONS FOR CURE ■ OF NEURASTHENIA. , | .

Remarkable statements wero made by Viscount Kniltsiord, chairman ut the London Hospital, when tho question of the treatment oi officers and soldiers for neurasthenia was raised by-Earl Stanhope in the House of Lords recently. !

Lord Knutsford pointed out that some persons were constantly misrepresenting the effect of. tlie treatment of neurasthenic patients. He had received > all sorts .of absurd and extraordinary suggestions for the cure of neurasthenia. One lady 6aid that 'if the. patient'iplayed on a guitar it -might have, a satisfactory result. Ho replied that had'been r heady tried when David played before;caul.-One man argued that neurasthenia was a gas which escaped from a person,.! and that he had a patent for stopping the leakage. Another person'suggested the patients should live in a'state of nature! in the woods and enjoy the morning; dew. A colony that' hail been started ;was cnlv brokon up because some dogs bit jthe patients. 'Everybody seemed to think he couid euro neurasthenia. He h|d seen men wjio.wero hardly human cured by the treatment thoy had been given, and he could say with pride, satisfaction, ni.d gratitude that .the best pathologists of the country had with tho -greatejt devotion given up their time to the study of this difficult disease. It was misleading and mischievious to say fiiat ; any one treatment was better than any c flier ior a disease which had so many causes.

Viscount Peel, replying, for ! War Office, said the number, of officers discharged from the Army suffering from sliell 6hock was 295, from neurasthenia 2112, and from miscellaneous nervous diseases 441. The number of men discharged for nervous diseases was 34,092.