What caused world war 1 shell shock’? I’m aware that PTSD and stress reaction injuries are still common in modern warfare, but I’m curious what caused the specific convulsing/shaking phenomena seen in soldiers exposed to heavy shelling in ww1? Were the causes due to physical brain damage from concussion, or was it a psychological reaction? You don’t seem to see people coming back from Iraq/Afghanistan with shaking like that.
[Video containing example of shaking and tremors](https://youtu.be/SS1dO0JC2EE)
In: Biology
As they generally did back in the day with medicine, they would lump all symptoms together when associated with something.
They’d see the PTSD symptoms of returning soldiers and they called it shell shock. They’d see other symptoms that may have simply been simple dehydration and since it was commonly seen amongst these returning soldiers, they lumped it together and called also this shell shock. The truth is that they were exposed to heat from gunfire and explosions, and they dehydrated. It also probably didn’t help that the last thing on their minds in those moments was where to get some water.
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