often in sleep will do and dare the same. Frightening battle dreams are mentioned by Hippocrates (4607-377 bc), and in Lucretius' poem, De Rerum Natura, written in 50 bc (Book IV, transi. The loss of sight has the primary benefit of blotting out the vision of danger, and the secondary benefit of procuring support and care. It is noteworthy that the symptoms are not caused by a physical wound, but by fright and the vision of a killed comrade, and that they persist ewer the years. Such, as I understand, was the tale which Epizelus told. The following is the account which he himself, as I have heard, gave of the matter: he said that a gigantic warrior, with a huge beard, which shaded all his shield, stood over against him but the ghostly semblance passed him by, and slew the man at his side. Epizelus, the son of Cuphagoras, an Athenian, was in the thick of the fray and behaving himself as a brave man should, when suddenly he was stricken with blindness, without blow of sword or dart and this blindness continued thenceforth during the whole of his afterlife. George Rawlinson):Ī strange prodigy likewise happened at this fight. The first case of chronic mental symptoms caused by sudden fright in the battlefield is reported in the account of the battle of Marathon by Herodotus, written in 440 bc ( History, Book VI, transi. This confrontation with death changed his personality. But after this phase of mourning, he races from place to place in panic, realizing that he too must die. After Gilgamesh loses his friend Enkidu, he experiences symptoms of grief, as one may expect. Mankind's first major epic, the tale of Gilgamesh, gives us explicit descriptions of both love and posttraumatic symptoms, suggesting that the latter are also part of human fundamental experience. the officers shall say, What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart. When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou. As we are reminded in Deuteronomy 20:1-9, military leaders have long been aware that many soldiers must be removed from the frontline because of nervous breakdown, which is often contagious: Mankind's earliest literature tells us that a significant proportion of military casualties are psychological, and that witnessing death can leave chronic psychological symptoms.
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