I mean war always has been a part of our life since the first civilizations was established. I’m sure “shellshock” wasn’t only caused by artilery shots.
In: Other
Perhaps the oldest chronic mental health problem caused by combat trauma we know of, from the account of the battle of Marathon by Herodotus, written in 440 bc (*History,* Book VI, transi. George Rawlinson):
*A strange prodigy likewise happened at this fight. Epizelus, the son of Cuphagoras, an Athenian, was in the thick of the fray and behaving himself as a brave man should, when suddenly he was stricken with blindness, without blow of sword or dart; and this blindness continued thenceforth during the whole of his afterlife. The following is the account which he himself, as I have heard, gave of the matter: he said that a gigantic warrior, with a huge beard, which shaded all his shield, stood over against him; but the ghostly semblance passed him by, and slew the man at his side. Such, as I understand, was the tale which Epizelus told.*
Back then they hadn’t given a name to PTSD, but they had the concept.
Later, in the Napoleonic Wars they referred to *“vent du boulet”* syndrome – it described those who had felt the wind of a bullet / cannonball pass by so close that traumatised soldiers might fall into a stupor despite not being physically harmed.
Latest Answers