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Odd Solutions to Historic Problems

Khalid Elhassan December 9, 2020 32 min

United States - American Civil War — Young recruits during the Vietnam War, circa 1967. History

34. Inventing the Concept of Electrocution as a Solution to Shellshock

Electric shock as a solution for shellshock was not invented by Germans, but they took that solution and ran with it. That treatment was the brainchild of English electro-physiologist Edgar Douglas Adrian, 1^st Baron Adrian, who went on to win a Nobel Prize for physiology in 1932. During WWI, he devised an electric shock treatment for shell-shocked soldiers. He reasoned that pain was necessary to combine therapy with discipline, because shellshock sufferers were suspected of malingering.

Because shellshock was often seen as malingering, military authorities were reluctant to “reward” sufferers with adequate rest and relaxation which we now know are among the most effective means for treating PTSD. The goal was to send shell-shocked soldiers back to the front as quickly as possible, so an unpleasant treatment such as electric shock was seen as an appropriate coercive therapy.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.