Have we been wrong about ‘shell shock’ for decades?

From the creator

In the history of military medicine, nothing has attracted the attention of doctors and the public alike so much as “shell shock” - a phrase coined by soldiers of the First World War to describe the strange and varied symptoms displayed by men who survived close hits by artillery. This new disorder spread rapidly through the trenches; in 1915 alone 10,000 apparently uninjured men were sent home to Britain for treatment. These troops were badly needed at the front, and an urgent debate began: Was shell shock caused by exposure to blast waves or was it purely psychological - a reaction to the stress and horror of industrial warfare? If you are affected by the issues raised in this report, help is available at itv.com/helplines. • Subscribe to ITV News on YouTube: http://bit.ly/2lOHmNj • Get breaking news and more stories at http://www.itv.com/news Follow ITV News on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@itvnews?lang=en Follow ITV News on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itvnews/ Follow ITV News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itvnews/ Follow ITV News on X: https://twitter.com/itvnews

Published 2026-11-11 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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