Shell shock syndrome?

[Thiudareiks Flavius]

This is certainly an interesting question. The idea of war causing long-term psychological effects on soldiers is familiar to us in the post WW1/WW2/Vietnam era, but I'm having trouble thinking of many examples from earlier periods. I recall one English aristocrat who fought in the Thirty Years War later spent his days building complex fortifications and defences out of sand and talked constantly of enemy attacks. IIRC correctly, his condition later deteriorated still further and he came to believe he was actually a dog, refused to enter the house and spent the rest of his days living with the other dogs in the households kennels. His family attributed his insanity directly to his experience of war, but that's the earliest example I can think of (seventeenth century) of what would now be considered a severe case of PTSD.<br>
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I suspect most earlier warfare consisted largely of marching, manoeuvering and of very little actual sharp action, with only a proportion of the soldiers actually exposed to the pointy end of things. There was little constant danger from artillery, bombing, snipers, gas, chemical/biological, weapons or nukes or any of the other things that makes 20th/21st Century soldiering so dangerous and stressful. <p>Tim O'Neill / Thiudareiks Flavius<BR>
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