Shell shock

“Certain clinical features of shell shock cases, however, did not fit Mott’s narrowly somatic theory. Notably, most cases did not occur in the presence of exploding shells or carbon monoxide, and symptoms frequently emerged at some distance from the scene of combat. What this meant was that Mott’s theory could explain only a small percentage of the observed cases. These cases came to be called ‘concussional shock’” (Brown III, 330-31). . . . The success of analytic therapies contributed to legitimating the functional nervous disorder, thereby extending the boundary of medical explanation to cover the behavior of soldiers not covered by Mott’s notion of concussional shock. . . . The success of analytic treatments, then, as limited as they were, provided a rationale for transferring the management of many men who would not fight, from the hands of military justice to those of medicine” (338).