Part 10 (1/2)
The two other elements were reeducation and discipline. Once suggestion had brought the patient to believe firmly that he would be cured, he was made to understand that his cure would be permanent.
Then reeducation was inst.i.tuted to overcome the bad habit of lack of confidence that had been formed, while discipline broke down the psychic resistance of the patient to the idea of recovery. In such symptoms as mutism or deafness, the patient was told that electricity would cure him and that as soon as he felt the current when the electrode was applied, his power of speech or of hearing would be restored, _pari pa.s.su_, with sensation. The same method was used for blindness and other sensory symptoms. Paralyses were favorably affected the same way, though tremors were harder to deal with. A cure in a single treatment was the best method, for the patient readily relapsed unless he was made to feel that he had recovered his powers completely and that it would be his own fault if he permitted his symptoms to recur.
The most interesting phase of the successful treatment of these war neuroses for us was {264} the fact that the ultimate dependence was placed by the French on a system of management which was called _torpillage_. _Torpillage_ consists in the brusque application of faradic currents strong enough to be extremely painful in hysterical conditions, and the continuance of the procedure to the point at which the deaf hear, the dumb speak, or those who believe themselves incapable of moving certain groups of muscles come to move them freely. The method has proved highly effective and requires but little time and practically no personnel except the medical officer who applies the treatment and the non-commissioned officer who takes the patient at the end of the treatment and continues the exercise of the afflicted parts. One treatment suffices. The apparatus is of the simplest, the only accessory to the electric supply and the electrodes consisting of an overhead trolley which carries the long connecting wires the whole length of the room, thus making it impossible for the patient to get away from the current which is destined to cure him.
In a word, the man who would insist on maintaining a false att.i.tude of mind towards himself, though that att.i.tude of mind was not {265} deliberate, and least of all not malingering, was simply made to give it up. Sufficient pain was inflicted on him so that he was willing to accept instead of his own false opinion the opinion of his physician that he could accomplish certain functions. _Torpillage_ was, in other words, simply ”a method of treatment which gave authority to a medical officer to inflict pain on a patient up to the point at which the patient yields up his neurosis.” As a rule, the infliction of very little suffering is needed, for once the demonstration is made that he will have to suffer or give in, it does not take him very long to give in. There is no doubt at all that the method is eminently effective, particularly in those cases which were entirely refractory to other modes of treatment.
It would remind us of some old modes of treatment which were in popular use long ago, but which had gone out entirely in our milder generation because we thought their use almost unjustified. It was not an unusual thing three or four generations ago to rouse a young woman out of an hysterical tantrum, once it was perfectly clear from previous experiences that it _was_ really an hysterical tantrum, by das.h.i.+ng a pitcher of cold water {266} over her. Sir Thomas More relates that he saw a number of people suffering from various forms of possession--and any neurologist will confess that some hysterics must have a devil--who were cured by being roundly whipped. Certain men and women who complained that they were unable to walk or to work and thus became a care for relatives or for the community, were cured by this, as it seemed to later generations, heartless mode of treatment.
Now, we have turned to curing the war hysterias by punishment, that is, by the infliction of severe pain, in just the same way. A great many of these patients who suffer from neuroses and psycho-neuroses, and especially from hysterical inhibitions so that they cannot hear or cannot walk or cannot talk, represent inabilities similar to many which are seen in civil life. Patients complain that they cannot do things; their friends say that they will not do them; and the physician sees that the root of the trouble is that they cannot _will_. Now, however, that war has permitted the use of such remedies, physicians have found that they can, to advantage, force the patients to will and that once the will has been recalled into action, its energy can be maintained.
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Of course the compulsory mode of treatment was not represented as a punishment, but on the contrary it was always presented as a form of treatment which was extremely painful but necessary for the condition.
Presented as punishment, it would have been resented, and the patient would probably have set about sympathizing with himself and perhaps seek the sympathy of others, and this would prevent the effectiveness of the treatment. It is very evident that as the result of compulsory methods of treatment, and of the recognition of the fact that major hysterical conditions are largely the result of suggestion and must be cured by enabling the patient to secure control over himself again, the outlook for the treatment of the psychoneuroses will be very different as a consequence of the experience that has been gained.
Above all, the place of the will will be recognized, and there will no longer be that coddling of patients and that a.n.a.lysis of their minds for long distant psychic insults of various kinds which will explain their condition, that has done so much harm in a great many ways in recent years.
Another feature of the French treatment was that the neurotic patients should be {268} isolated. This isolation was complete. It had been found that a.s.sociation with other patients, the opportunity to tell their troubles and be sympathized with, did them harm invariably and inevitably, so that those whose neurotic symptoms continued were taken absolutely away from all a.s.sociation with others. Not only this, but all other modes of diversion of mind were denied them. They were placed in rooms without reading or writing materials and even without tobacco. This solitary confinement would remind one of the enforced privacy of the old-fas.h.i.+oned rest cure in which the patient was absolutely secluded from all a.s.sociation with relatives or others who might in any way sympathize with them. The soldier patients were kept in this complete isolation until such time as they showed themselves amenable to treatment. This was usually not very long.
As a matter of fact, the isolation rooms had to be used very little but were found necessary and especially effective in the management of relapsed cases. Just as soon as soldier patients learned that such isolating rooms were available, they became much more ready to give up their neuroses, and as a consequence, in most places, the isolating department did {269} not have to be used, and in some places they could even be given over to the lodgment of attendants. It was quite sufficient, however, that they had fulfilled their purpose of changing patients' att.i.tude of mind towards themselves and giving their will control over them.
As Colonel Pearce Bailey, M.C., says, in most of these patients, persuasive measures and contrary suggestion were quite sufficient, but when they failed, disciplinary measures proved effective. How are we going to be able to make such disciplinary measures available in civil life is another question, but at least the war has made clear that neurotic patients who claim that they cannot do something and actually will not do it, _must be made to do it_, for this will prove the beginning of their cure. It seems probable, as Doctor Bailey adds, that the reason why the treatment of officers was more difficult--and it must not be forgotten that in proportion to their numbers, four times as many officers suffered from so-called sh.e.l.l shock as privates--was exactly because these modes of discipline, amounting practically to compulsion, were not used with them.
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CHAPTER XIX
FEMININE ILLS AND THE WILL
”Oh, undistinguished s.p.a.ce of woman's will!”
_King Lear_.
It is probable that the largest field for the employment of the will for the cure of conditions that are a source of serious discomfort or at least of complaint is to be found among the special ills of womankind. The reason for this is that the personal reaction has so much to do with the amount of complaint in these affections. Not infrequently the individual is ever so much more important than the condition from which she is suffering. Women who have regular occupation with plenty to do, especially if they are interested in it and take their duties seriously, who get sufficient exercise and are out of doors several hours each day and whose appet.i.tes are as a consequence reasonably good, suffer very little from feminine ills, as a rule. If an infection of some kind attacks them, they will, of {271} course, have the usual reaction to it, and this may involve a good deal of pain and even eventually require operation. Apart from this, however, there is an immense number of feminine ills dependent almost entirely on the exaggerated tendency to react to even minor discomforts which characterizes women who have no occupation in which they are really interested, who have very little to do, almost no exercise, and whose appet.i.te and sleep as a consequence are almost inevitably disturbed.
Above all, it must not be forgotten that whenever women do not get out into the air regularly every day--and this means for a time both morning and afternoon--they are likely to become extremely sensitive to pains and aches. This is true of all human beings. Those who are much in the open air complain very little of injuries and bodily conditions that would seem extremely painful to those living sedentary lives and who are much indoors. Riding in the open air is better than not being in the open air at all, but it does not compare in its power to desensitize people with active exercise in the open air. In the older days, when women occupied themselves very much indoors with {272} sewing, knitting and other feminine work, and with reading in the evenings, and when it was considered quite undignified for them to take part in sports, neurotic conditions were even more common than they are at the present time, and young women were supposed to faint readily and were quite expected to have attacks of the ”vapors” and the ”tantrums.”