WASTAGE OF WAR

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3470, 24 May 1934, Page 3

WASTAGE OF WAR

SHELL-SHOCKED MEN.

TREATMENT IN ENGLAND. Mr. A. G. Macdonell in his book "England, their England," sent his hero to recover from shell-shock in a hospital where the treatment was' so empiric that only about 2 per cent. of the patients recovered (says the Manchester Guardian). Shell-shock treatment in England after the war was never quite as bad as that, but it was inadequate enough for a large proportion ofthe -patients to end in lunatic asylums, and official treatment of this disability has hot always had that personal attention which is desirable. That things are better now is largely due to the Ex-services Welfare Society, which runs two curative homes at Beckenham and an industrial centre at Leatherhead for shellshocked ex-soldiers. A patient may be recommended to it by the British Red Cross Society or some similar body; he may write to it himself for help, or his wife may write, or his doctor, or a kindlj neighbour; a missioner or one of the society's representatives may find him suffering inarticulately in a Police Court, brought there by the snapping of his tortured temper or by petty uncontrollable thefts. He is examined by one of the society's thirty or forty consulting neurologists, and by other specialists if the case demands it, as when pyorrhea or some other bodily condition is contributing to his neurasthenia. If he has crossed the border-line of insanity the society must relinquish him to a mental hospital; if he has not, their work of rebuilding begins. The First Stage.

First the patient goes to Eden Manor, an old-fashioned house ' in large, quiet grounds on the outskirts of Beckenham. There he finds himself among some thirty other men in the stages of treatment, which is in essentials simple enough, and the fresh air, work in the house and garden, regular meals and sleep, less of the bromides with which he has kept himself going, and more of the opportunities to explain his nightmare which he has really needed. He sleeps in a comfortable and airy room, which looks like a room and not like •i ward; the biggest has no more than five beds in it. There have to "be rules, but they are not many, and he is always an individual case, no longer struggling unwanted and unhelped. After a time he is well enough to go across the wide lawns, the stream, and the fields to Eden Lodge, where another thirty men go through the second stage of cure. Here are fields of cabbages and potatoes, pigs and chickens, an orchard, and a carpenter's shop. The men are stronger now, and they work in the fields or garden with more vigour. In both homes they do their own housework, and can play tennis, bowls, or clock golf; they go on outings from time to time, and many of them go home for Christmas. In fact the worry which persists longest with many o, them is that they are living soft and grc4dng well while their wives are struggling in the difficult world outside. One of the society's chief jobs is to take such worrits off their shoulders by succouring the men dependants when they need it. Factory and Field. finally they are fit enough to do

| normal work once more, and then ; they go to the industrial centre at Leatherhead. Here, on a hill outside the town, is a big house set among yew hedges and stately gardens, and behind it the factory of Thermega, Ltd., where about forty men do a full day's work for a full day's pay, making electric blankets, pads, and motor mats, or working in the woodwork shop. Another fifteen or twenty work in the fields, growing vegetables for the community and for sale. An attempt is being made also to grow sti'awberries for the market. There are twelve semi-detached cottages for married men; others live off the estate, and about thirty in the house itself. This is the stage where the recovering patient regains the last and done with an engine speed not greater himself and his power to work and earn. After a time he goes back to the unsheltered world again. Sometimes the stress of things is too great, a relapse occurs, and the process has to begin again. In more cases he holds his own with life, a cured and happy man. The society's work does not begin with the hospital case; its relief department deals yearly with thousands of cases where money or influence or advice can put a shell-shocked man on his feet in time. It may buy a working carpenter a bag of tools, or a mutilated man an artificial nose. .In many cases it successfully applies for pensions to be renewed or increased. In fact, it supplements the work of the Ministry of Pensions by doing what a Government Department cannot do. In its fifteen years of life it has helped 16,850 ex-soldiers of all ranks in one way or another, and has provided treatment for 1500 of them; it spends £IO,OOO a year on maintaining its homes, and from £3OOO to i'4ooo a year on grants. It is supported entirely by voluntary contributions, spends. them all, and always has a waiting list. Its best testimonial is what was said of it by an ex-patient, a man who had led a rough and unhelped life: "Nobodyhas ever been -co kind to me."