Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is usually described by the American Psychiatric Association as an Emotional disorder which starts from a specific occurrence inducing extensive stress. The disorder is mostly found in victims of the Holocaust, sexual harassment, car accidents and other traumatizing incidents, for instance, combat. The disorder has a very long history.
Posttraumatic stress disorder is every now and then considered being a moderately modern diagnosis just because the name made its first appearance in 1980. This is not the case since the history of this disorder has quite a long history. The history of the posttraumatic stress disorder has often been connected to the history of war, whereas it has also been portrayed in the civilian settings engaging natural tragedies, mass disasters and other severe accidental injuries. The war had very serious psychological effects on individuals in an instant and long lasting ways (Fredericks 19).
More than three thousand years ago, a combat veteran who was an Egyptian named Hori, put into writing all the feelings and emotions he experienced prior to going into the battle. He stated how these feelings would attack an individual, saying that the person would determine to move forward and then the trembling would grab hold of him. He would have the hairs on his forehead stand on end and his soul lying on his hand. History states clearly that among the Romans, Egyptians and the Greeks, all the men broke and dashed in battle incidents, which revealed that, the soldiers of ancient times were not very afraid of dying (Coleman 32).
For example, the Greek historian Herodotus, in the script of the combat of Marathon I 490 B.C, mentions a combatant from Athens who went enduringly blind when the soldier who was standing next to him was murdered. Even though the soldier who lost his eyes was not injured in any part of his body, he suffered a lot of conversion reactions, which most of the soldiers experienced, and it also affects them even today. These common types of conversion reactions include blindness, deafness as well as paralyzing.
The Herodotus also talks about the Spartan leader Leonidas, who sent away all of his men from joining the battle of Thermopylae Pass in 480 B.C. This was because he without a doubt recognized they were psychologically exhausted from the previous combat. They soldiers did not have a heart for the battle and were not willing to endanger their lives in the battle. The script also talks of a soldier named Aristodemus, who was completely shaken by the combat and was later given a nickname the Trembler. As a result of low esteem and a feeling of shame, the soldier hanged himself (Coleman 41).
One thousand years later, there was not a lot of change in the front line. The Anglo Saxon Chronicles gives an account of a combat in 1003 A.D between the Danes and the English. During this time, the leader of the English allegedly became so aggressively sick that began to throw up and was no longer in the position to lead his men.
In World War 1, the soldiers experienced shell shock, which is a reaction to the trauma of the fight. Shell shock was the to the force of the attack and hostility that produced a defenselessness appearing in different ways as terrified, or fright, lack of ability to reason, sleep, walk or even utter a word. After even the most compliant soldier had an adequate amount of shells rain down on him, lacking any way of fighting back, he frequently lost all self-discipline (Fredericks 46).
During the battle, the idea of the shell shock was imprecise. Most encounters of the shell shock were taken as either a physical or psychological damage or just as being short of moral fiber. During the battle, most of the soldiers started complaining of medical symptoms after the battle, which included, loss of memory, headache, trembling, dizziness and being oversensitive to noise. Many of those soldiers who reported of having these symptoms did not have any physical injury on the heads.
Most of the doctors held the opinion that the shell shock was as an effect of hidden physical injury to the brain, by means of the shock effects from bursting shells generating a cerebral abrasion that resulted to the symptoms and could potentially lead to death. The doctors also explained that the shell shock was as a result of poisoning from carbon monoxide, which was formed by the explosions.
An alternative analysis developed recounting shell shock as an emotional, rather than a physical wound. The evidence to this view was given by the fact that a rising number of men suffering from shell shock symptoms had not been out in the open to weaponry fire. From the moment, the symptoms in men who did not have closeness to an exploding shell; the bodily explanation was not evidently satisfactory. In World War 2 and from then on, the diagnosis of shell shock was reinstated by that of combat stress reaction. The response was similar but not the same to the distress of warfare (Fredericks 38).
Internal medical doctor Da Costa studied Civil War veterans in the US, and found out that the majority of the veterans experienced symptoms such as chest-thumping, nervousness and short of breath. Other symptoms included fatigue, diarrhea, lack of sleep and palpitations. De Costa named this set of symptoms as the Soldiers Heart.
Symptoms of the Soldier’s heart were not restricted to those soldiers who had in the battle, and the internal doctor believed that the situation took place in civilian populations. Since most of the victims had experienced a recent episode of diarrhea, upper respiratory illness or feverish disease, De Costa completed by saying that infectious illness was the cause to almost half of the patients. Tiring military tasks contributed to almost thirty eight percent and eighteen percent to miscellaneous reasons. The doctor gave a report that thirty eight percent of the patients recuperated from the Soldiers Heart disorder. He also stated that the administration of a number of drugs may have had a valuable effect.
Additionally to the Soldier’s Heart disorder, a war related disease accredited to mainly to psychological factors was reported in the course of the United States Civil War. Youthful soldiers with compulsive opinions of home established a diagnosis of a severe type of homesickness which was typically accompanied by a great sense of lack of interest, loss of appetite, occasional fever and diarrhea.
Posttraumatic stress disorder does not firmly confine itself to the war incident. An English man named Samuel Pepys lived in London during the 16th Century. His existing diary presents an outstanding record of the development of posttraumatic stress disorder. In the script of the Great Fire of London, the English man describes people’s fear and aggravation at not being able to protect their possessions or put a stop to the fire. He recounts the event by stating that it was a most horrid, mean and blood fire which terrified everyone. He says the fire was enough to put them out of their wits.
Even though Pepys’s home was not touched by the fierce fire, he was not able to sleep for several days after the incident of the fire. He said he had a lot of fear for fire in his heart where he had countless dreams of fire and falling houses. The diary of Pepys describes general feelings of rage and dissatisfaction over the next several months. He also states that the information of a chimney flames some distance away put him into greater fear and trouble.
The physicians of the Swiss military in 1968 were among the very first people to discover and name that collection of behaviors that make up severe combat reaction or posttraumatic stress disorder. They used the term Nostalgia to define the a condition featured by depression, homesickness, insomnia, weakness lack of appetite, nervousness, palpitations, state of unconsciousness and fever. Also, German doctors identified the problem among their groups almost at the same time with the Swiss. They named this condition the heimweh which means homesickness. They believed that the soldiers had those symptoms as a result of longing to go back to their homes (Cantor 37).
In the year 1727 during the siege of Gibraltar, a combatant was a part of defense of that city maintained his diary. Throughout his diary, he recounts the incidents in which soldiers were murdered or injured themselves. He also recounts the condition of high physical fatigue which led the soldiers to losing their ability to comprehend or process even the simplest instructions. During this state, the soldiers would decline to take food, drink, perform duties or even fight in defense of the city even though they would be whipped continually for declining to comply.
Larry, a French surgeon identified the posttraumatic stress disorder as comprising of three stages. He mentions the first one as increased excitement and imagination; the second stage is described as a phase of fever and major gastrointestinal signs and the final state involves frustrations and depression.
In the period of the American Civil War, the military physicians identified many situations of practical disability as the result of terror of the fight and the pressures of the military life. This included a variety of diseases which are today known to be caused by emotional instability, as well as paralysis, shivers, self-inflicted injuries, homesickness and serious palpitations. The soldiers could even collapse with emotional sicknesses at home, even when they had not shown any signs of mental disorder before they had left the battle. Civil War was the stepping stone to the modern warfare. Those soldiers that participated in Civil War made the first frontal physical attacks into repeating rifles and pistols, in addition to the Gatling gun, and deferred time weaponry rounds that permitted air bursts. Civil War also included telescopic views and rifles which increased their accuracy and destructiveness in the fight (Saigh 26).
In the 19th century, there was the identification for the post traumatic signs of travelers who got involved in railroad accidents. The name given to this diagnosis was the Railway spine. In this century, railway accidents were a frequent incident. Worsening the problem was the reality that the railway cars were weak, structures made of wood without any protection for the occupants. Hermann, the leading neurologist in Germany, states that all railway spine signs were as a result of physical damage to the spinal or brain. The French and British researchers particularly Charcot and Herbert Page argued out by persisting on the thought that some of those symptoms could be as a result of hysteria.
The direct results were that psychological signs turned out to be so common. Field leaders and the medical doctors implored with the War Department to give some form of screening to do away with employees vulnerable to psychiatric breakdown. Military doctors, at a loss to cure the problems, just collected the acute cases out in the first three years of the battle. Richard Gabriel reported that the soldiers were put on trains without any supervision, the name of the town or state from which they hailed from was stuck to their tunics. Others were left to roam about the countryside until the time they would die either exposure or from hunger (Corales 43).
For civilians in the 18th century, the development of the industrial period generated large companies with machinery controlled by employees who frequently had wounds as a result of accidents. Train wrecks turned out to be more frequent. Charles Dickens, an author, got involved in a railway accident in 1865 in England. He experienced signs which in the present day would be identified as post traumatized stress disorder. Dickens recounts the horrific sight in a letter where he says it was almost three hours work and between the dead and the dying surrounded by horrific scenes. He put into writing that he was not quite correct within himself, but he believed it was an effect of the railway accident.
Those who got involved in railway accidents started taking legal actions towards railroads. Lawyers representing the railway companies defended them with the name of compensation obsession, which laid the blame on the complainants that they were trying to get something for absolutely nothing. This reduction of effects of the trauma by accusing the victims with having hidden motives was very frequent in the military.
The Russian Army was the first military in history to conclude that mental collapse was an immediate result of the stress of battle and to consider it as a lawful medical state. The Russian Army did this in 1905 in their battle with the Japanese. Gabriel affirms that the Russian effort to diagnose and cure the battle shock correspond to the birth of the military closeness or forward treatment (Cantor 20).
Throughout history, both men and women have done something to suppress the shock that they have seen or experienced. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is noticed going through the experience of trauma again in thought, emotion or dream substance, which is in return confirmation by emotional and mental numbing. In the modern time, Posttraumatic stress disorder is illustrated by depression, lack of interest in performing duties physical and emotional deadening, rage, dementia, isolation, nervousness, skepticism and many other symptoms.
Works Cited
Cantor, Chris. Evolution and Posttraumatic Stress: Disorders of Vigilance and Defence. Hove, East Sussex: Brunner-Routledge, 2005. Print.
Coleman, Penny. Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide, and the Lessons of War. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. Print.
Corales, Thomas A. Trends in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research. Hauppauge, N.Y: Nova Science Publishers, 2005. Print.
Fredericks, Carrie. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010. Print.
Saigh, Philip A, and J D. Bremner. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Comprehensive Text. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999. Print.
