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Excerpt of a letter from Frederick Walker Mott to Adolf Meyer

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Title

Excerpt of a letter from Frederick Walker Mott to Adolf Meyer

Description

In the history of psychiatry, the First World War is often identified with the rise of the disorder of “shell shock.” Referred to at the time most often as “war neurosis,” the malady was characterized by tics, convulsions, muscle spasms, paralyses, shakes, emotional outbursts, loss of speech, and problems in memory. The scale of the problem, by contemporaries’ accounts, seemed to match the scale of the conflict itself.

Many doctors in America learned about the condition and current treatment methods from the British before they entered the war. Here, Doctor Frederick Walker Mott apprises Meyer of the condition and treatment from his vantage point in London. Mott was one of Meyer’s English colleagues in pathology and psychiatry. At the time of his letter, he was treating and studying shell shock patients at the Maudsley Hospital in London. Later that month, he would open his doors to Americans touring British facilities in preparation for their own work on the problem in American troops.

Creator

Mott, Frederick Walker

Date

May 26, 1917

Format

excerpt from 12 page handwritten letter

Identifier

Folder II/353/51