Edgar Adrian (1889–1977) and Shell Shock Electrotherapy: A Forgotten History?

2018 ◽  
Vol 79 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 106-107
Author(s):  
Laurent Tatu
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
World War ◽  
Shell Shock ◽  
Electric Treatment

The English electrophysiologist Edgar Adrian (1889–1977) was the recipient of the Nobel Prize for physiology in 1932 for his research on the functions of neurons. During World War I, at Queen Square in London, he devised an intensive electrotherapeutic treatment for shell-shocked soldiers. The procedure, developed with Lewis Yealland (1884–1954), was similar to “torpillage,” the faradic psychotherapy used in France. Adrian and Yealland considered that the pain accompanying the use of faradic current was necessary for both therapeutic and disciplinary reasons, especially because of the suspicion of malingering. According to Adrian, this controversial electric treatment was only able to remove motor or sensitive symptoms. After the war, he finally admitted that war hysteria was a complex and difficult phenomenon.

scholarly journals Thomas Mann - Gennem krigens sygdomme mod en ny humanisme

2018 ◽  
pp. 47-64
Author(s):  
Rasmus Navntoft
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Nobel Prize Winner ◽  
Thomas Mann ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Main Character ◽  
World War ◽  
Major Work ◽  
New Humanism

The German author and Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann (1875-1955) perceived World War I as a moral battle against the civilization project rooted in the European enlightenment. Like many other German intellectuals of that time, Mann stresses an opposition between the concept of culture and that of civilization – this conflict is seen as inherent in the European soul – and defends Germany’s right to remain a culture that does not evolve into a civilization. The concept of culture can contain irrational features such as mystical, bloody and terrifying teachings, whereas civilization is characterized by reason, enlightenment, skepticism and hostility towards passion and emotion. In his major work The Magic Mountain (1924) however, Mann tries to overcome this opposition and displays, through the metaphors of the text, that a new humanism is dependent upon a mystical and completely illogical balance between culture and civilization. The main character of the novel does not succeed in finding this balance. But, nonetheless, Mann continues to see the possibilities of a new humanism through this perspective in order to point out a humanistic hope in the shadesof two European world wars.

scholarly journals Out of the ruins: Knut Hamsun’s ‘idealism’ and the inheritance of World War I

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 262-272
Author(s):  
Tore Rem
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
World War ◽  
Knut Hamsun

In 1920, the Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun won the Nobel Prize for literature for his novel Markens grøde ( Growth of the Soil) (1917). This article explores some of the key contexts for this work, highlighting the author’s own ambitions, the reasons why he sided with Germany during the war, and his generally völkisch perspectives on the Germanic and Nordic. It furthermore analyses the early reception of this World War I novel, and how it was first subjected to a number of positive readings and seen as an example of idealism, before being appropriated by Nazism.

The War Years and Bárány’s Decision to Leave Vienna

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Baloh
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Military Service ◽  
World War ◽  
Decision To Leave ◽  
Army Medical

As the conflict in Adam Politzer’s clinic heated up and with the approach of World War I, Robert Bárány volunteered for service in the army medical corps, in keeping with his pacifist ideas. Although he could have been excused from military service because of his ankylosed knee, Bárány was swept up in the wave of patriotism prevalent in Vienna. He was immediately assigned as an army surgeon to a hospital in the fortress of Przemysl near the Russian border. Przemysl was eventually overrun by Russian troops, and Bárány was transported along with more than 100,000 other prisoners in cattle cars across the Russian steppe to Turkistan. It was during his stay in Russia that Bárány received the exciting news from the Swedish minister in St. Petersburg that he had been awarded the 1914 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on the caloric reaction.

“The Absurd Disordering of Notes”

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth Keyes
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
World War ◽  
Psychic Trauma ◽  
Shell Shock ◽  
Medical Reform ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
Post Traumatic

Railway spine, nerve prostration, combat neurosis, post-traumatic stress disorder: throughout the twentieth century, a complex array of terms has been codified by cultural, national, and medical institutions to describe a body and mind made dysfunctional by the inability to process intensely disturbing memories. In the wake of World War I, trauma-induced mental illness—diagnosed and treated as “shell-shock” in countless veterans—became an imperative focal point for sociopolitical and medical reform throughout Europe. This essay explores the connections between this historically contextualized psychiatric disorder and the music of Ivor Gurney, a soldier in the British Army whose life and work was significantly affected by his diagnosis in 1918. Through particular disturbances of form, structure, and texture, Gurney’s musical landscapes reenact the conditions of psychic trauma by creating a world in which memories are disruptive, invasive, and ultimately disabling.

scholarly journals Robert Bárány, a scientist with many interests

2019 ◽  
Vol 77 (5) ◽  
pp. 366-368
Author(s):  
Péricles Maranhão-Filho ◽  
Anders Bárány
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
60Th Birthday ◽  
World War ◽  
Personal Traits ◽  
Prison Camp

ABSTRACT Austrian-born Robert Bárány was a scientist with many interests. This article highlights some of these interests and also some personal traits. He enrolled as a surgeon in World War I, was captured by the Russians in 1915 and, while still in the prison camp, was awarded the 1914 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in otology. In 1916, he accepted an offer from Uppsala University, Sweden, and worked there for almost 20 years. He died shortly before his 60th birthday, in 1936.

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