THE GREAT TORPEDO.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 275, 6 November 1916, Page 7

THE GREAT TORPEDO.

NEW CURE FOR “BROKEN” SOLDIERS. The great torpedo affair has ended (writes a Paris correspondent.) It arose from the French love of picturesque language and the natural bent of rumour to exaggerate. An Army; doctor who distinguished himself greatly in a number of engagements by the bravery- he displayed in tending the wounded under fire, devoted himself subsequently 7 to the care of the.broken in the war —the men who, without any apparent wound are reduced to impotent helplessness through nervous shock. Some lose their speech and hearing, others the use of this or that limb ; many- caiinot walk or move at all, and have hitherto given the medi all, and have hitherto given the medical staff endless trouble and anxiety, owing to the utter uselessness, apparently, ,of trying to restore them to a normal state. Dr. Vincent, was a nerve specialist before the war. He has imagined a treatment which, on the face of it, seems nothing but a system of electrocution. SPREAD TERROR. It spread terror through the ranks of the unfit, and became known as the torpedo. There is no doubt that it gave the poor men fits. The doctor himself admits that it is awful, but- it sepms to have brought back to most of them ■ the use of their limbs. , A Zouave who was brought into the .operating room .utterly incapable of movement fell upon the doctor with such ferocity, after a few minutes’ shock, that he was court-martialed. His case rapidly developed into .a cause celebre owing to the bitterness of the partisans of and against the torpedo treatment. ' * The Court’s judgment ran much on the lines of Solomon’s historical finding, and has left things very much as they were. Pressmen have since heroicallysacrificed themselves on the altar of duty and allowed the doctor to torpfedo them. They declare that the process is painful, but effective and .well worth the suffering fcr the time being. THE DOCTOR RIGHT. Figures seem to prove' the doctor right. He has sent back to the fighting line some 10,000 supposed helpless incurables. A special committee of medical celebrities has decided that there is nothing dangerous about his treatment ; it be termed brutally efficacious, but in no case has any harm been known to arise from its application.