As Anthony Babington is careful to point out in his forwrd, this is not a medical book. It is, rather, a distillation, in words which any layman can understand, of the long struggle by the medical profession, and by influencail civilians of an understanding frame of mind, to persudae the Service Chiefs, in particuliar Senior army pfficers, that soldiers can only stand so much fighting. In the First World War, as Babington points out, men were shot at dawn for cowardice or desertion. One can only wonder that many more didn't crack up under the appalling stress to which they were subjected. By 1939 the situation had improved, and of course the Second World War was a much more mobile affair, without the set-piece mass slaughter that characterised the earlier conflict. It may also be remarked that it was much easier for the average private soldier to realize that he was fighting for a good cause, the Nazis being more readily identifiable as bogeymen than the soldiers of the Kaiser. There are those who argue that in the postwar era, things have gone too far in the opposite direction. Indeed Babington quotes the Duke of Edinburgh as saying: "We didn't have counsellers rushing around every time someone let off a gun asking "Are you alright" You just got on with it." Nonetheless few would argue that a counsellor is preferable to a firing squad. Judge Babington has produced a fascinating, if sometimes harrowing, study of the effects of war upon the fighting soldier, of the gradual understanding of the problem of battle fatigue and of the more merciful and sympathetic approach to its treatment. Readers of his earlier works will appreciate that it is a subject which he is uniquely qualified to handle.

Excerpt from War Neuroses and Shell Shock MY friend Brevet lieut.-col. F. W. Mott, has given me the privilege of saying a few words of intro duction to his valuable book on W ar Neuroses and Shell Shock. Its importance will be obvious to all members of the medical profession, for the problems with which it deals will, unhappily, remain with us long after the end of the War. But it seems to me well to emphasise the fact that the book is above all a record of astonishing success in the treatment of disorders which at first sight, and to all laymen who encounter them as relatives or friends of the sufferers, must appear peculiarly painful, mysterious, and intractable. Since the outbreak of War the author has devoted his whole time to the investigation and treatment of cases of War Neurosis and Shell Shock, first at the Neurological Section of the 4th London General Hospital and later at the Maudsley Neurological Clearing Hospital. He has therefore had unusual opportunities of studying the subject, and this work is based mainly upon his own experience, although foreign literature is quoted freely, especially the important work of the French Neurologists. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.