SHELL SHOCK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24950, 24 June 1942, Page 6

SHELL SHOCK

FEW CASES IN N.Z.E.F. TREATMENT BY SPECIALISTS (Special) .AUCKLAND, June 23. "That soldiers' complaint of the last war known as shell shock no longer appears on medical records," said Brigadier K. MacCormick, Director of Medical Services, 2nd N.Z.E.F., when discussing nervous cases and their incidence. " The same kind of thing is now described as anxiety neurosis. Actually, we probably had more of these cases before the troops went into action than subsequently. These were really men who constitutionally and temperamentally were unfitted to stand the ordinary strains of existence. ■" There were, of course, a number of older men and others who were genuinely and severely shocked by their experience of the terrific aerial bombardment in Crete, as well as of the bombing of ships during the evacuation. Except the constitutionally unfit, most of these recovered very quickly." Lieutenant-general Sir Bernard Freyberg and other officers who had served in the last war had told him that the strain of this unopposed bombing was greater than anything that had been suffered then. In striking contrast to the effects noted after Greece and Crete were those of the Libyan campaign, in which among the New Zealanders there were fewer than six cases of shell shock or exhaustion neurosis. Here the men were strikingly fit as they went into battle. They suffered severely, but. they knew they had hit back much harder, and they had the satisfaction of seeing British fighter aircraft master those of the enemy and knew that more bombs had been dropped on the enemy than had been dropped on themselves. The treatment of such nervous cases was in the hands of specialists. Special treatment centres' had been established in British hospitals and recently a whole special hospital had arrived in the Middle East from England. The New Zealand force's cases were under the care of its own specialists, mainly at the Ist General Hospital at Helwan. For these and other prolonged cases occupational therapy was most useful. All manner of arts and crafts were used to interest the men and distract them from morbid thoughts and tendencies.