Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: shell shock

  • The rise and fall of railway spine

    Lenny GrantSyracuse, New York, United States By 1864, British railways were responsible for 36 deaths and 700 injuries annually.1,2 Yet the most perplexing cases were not the visibly wounded, but those passengers who walked away apparently unharmed, only to develop debilitating symptoms days or weeks later. These survivors experienced what the Lancet described as “disturbed and diminished…

  • Mrs. Dalloway and shell shock

    Cristóbal S. Berry-CabánFort Liberty, North Carolina, United States The casualties suffered by the participants in World War I surpassed those of previous conflicts, as some 8.5 million soldiers died from wounds or disease.1,2 Artillery caused most of the casualties, followed by small arms and poison gas. However, the war’s signature injury became known as shell…

  • William Halse Rivers Rivers

    JMS PearceHull, England William Rivers MD FRCP FRS (1864-1922) William Rivers (Fig 1) was a most unusual man, a polymath with careers in neuroscience, ethnology, and psychology. But above all—notwithstanding or perhaps because of personal nervous constraints—he was a man of originality and great humanity. Son of a churchman, he was born in Luton, near…