REMARKABLE FACT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 November 1941, Page 6

REMARKABLE FACT

ABSENCE OF “WAR NERVES” IN BRITAIN. Psycheneurosis has been far less prevalent in Britain in this war than in the last, writes the medical correspondent of the “Spectator.” This is a much more remarkable fact than may at first appear to the layman. In one sense it is decidedly the most remarkable fact of any that has emerged from the struggle to date. It establishes the existence of a national morale which is a surer pointer to ultimate victory even than the steady increase in the numerical strength of the Royal Air Force. Its true significance may be better understood if I speak in terms of shell-shock and bomb-shock. The latter is really the modern description of the condition diagnosed when, in the last war, a soldier suffering from psy-cho-neurosis was said to be a shellshock case. That is to say the mind had been disordered without there being organic disease in the brain. It was caused by exposure to danger or subjection to terrifying experiences, such as narrow escape from, death following a violent explosion. The risk was confined almost exclusively to the fighting forces overseas. But this time the entire population of the British Isles, men, women and children, are subjected to the risk. It was thought that civilians, not disciplined to war, untrained in defence, helpless targets of enemy bombers, must crack up on a wholesale scale. Even mass-hysteria was feared. But nothing of the sort has happened—anywhere. In spite of the vastly greater numbers subjected to war-risks, psycho-neurosis, or bombshock, is less prevalent than in the last war.