A contribution to the study of shell shock : being an account of three cases of loss of memory, vision, smell, and taste, admitted into the Duchess of Westminster's War Hospital, Le Touquet / by Charles S. Myers.

  • Myers, Charles S. (Charles Samuel), 1873-1946.
Date:
1915?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A contribution to the study of shell shock : being an account of three cases of loss of memory, vision, smell, and taste, admitted into the Duchess of Westminster's War Hospital, Le Touquet / by Charles S. Myers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Case 1.—Private, aged 20. Admitted on Nov. 5th, 1914. On the nights of Oct. 28th and 29th he slept in the booking hall of X station ; “not much sleep there.” On the 30th he motored in a ’bus from X to Y, arriving there at 7.30 p.m. ; billets found at 8 p.m. ; on guard from 10-11.30 p.m., and from 1.45-3.45 a.m. At 11 a.m. on the 31st for the first time he went to the firing line. His platoon advanced to one set of trenches and then crossed the road to another, only to find it filled with cavalry and to be told that there was no room for them. During the retirement from this trench, at 1.30 p.m., they were “found” by the German artillery. Up to that time he had not been feeling afraid ; he had “rather been enjoying it,” and was in the best of spirits until the shells burst about him. He was now retiring over open ground, kneeling on both knees and trying to creep under wire entanglements, when two or three shells burst near him. As he was struggling to disentangle himself from the wire three more shells burst behind and one in front of him. (An eye-witness in this hospital says that his escape was a sheer miracle.) After the shells had burst he succeeded in getting back under the wire entanglements ; all his comrades had retired already. He managed to get into a trench, and as the firing slackened he rejoined his company. Immediately after the shell had burst in front of him his sight became blurred. It hurt him to open his eyes, and they “ burned ” when closed. The right eye seemed to have “ caught it ” more than the left. At the same moment he was seized with shivering, and cold sweat broke out especially round the loins. He thinks the shell behind him gave him the greater shock—“ like a punch on the head, without any pain after it.” The shell in front cut his haversack clean away and bruised his side, and apparently it burned his little finger. It was this shell, he says, which “ caused his blindness.” Falling in with two comrades, he was led by them, one on either side, to the dressing station. He opened his eyes occasionally to see where he was going, but everything appeared blurred except at the first moment of opening. There was no doubling of objects; they seemed to “ dissolve.” He was crying the whole time and worrying as to whether he was going blind. He kept turning over in his mind the succession of events from the beginning of the advance to the bursting of the shells. At the dressing station he was still crying and shivering; he was taken thence to a hospital by horse ambulance, where he was given brandy, and then sent on by horse ambulance to another hospital, and thence by motor ambulance at night to X, where he arrived early on Nov. 1st. He thinks he must have slept on the ambulances, as he remembers nothing. From Nov. 1st to 4th at X ; his eyes were bandaged and drops were instilled which “ burnt terribly.” No numbness or anassthesia observed. Slight deafness, which soon