BBC BBC.

BBC.

Hello and thank you for downloading Witness from the BBC World Service with me Alex Last

and today using the BBC, we go back to the First World War, when thousands

of troops from all sides began to suffer from psychiatric disorders then called shell shock.

After heavy bombardment, I've seen great, strong, healthy men come down from the line,

crying like children terrified with obsessive fear.

From the outbreak of war in 1914, doctors on all sides were confronted with unprecedented

numbers of soldiers suffering from psychiatric disorders.

The symptoms were varied, impaired sight and hearing, tremors, stammering, mutism, loss of memory and nightmares, some had complete breakdowns.

And they just went partly mad, clawing at their faces.

Terrible. And for a man to descend to those depths,

it's far worse than death.

All pride has gone. All humanity really.

Populently known by the catch-all term, Shell Shock, who was first thought to be caused by a kind of concussion,

the physical impact on the brain of being very close to an exploding shell,

which were raining down on troops on a scale never endured before.

British infantryman, Victor Packer.

These shells were going overhead,

but this shell had that wrong sound to it

and instantly I dived down for cover to the bottom of the trench and the

wretched thing hit the side of the trench right where I was lying and all my hair

...