Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 200, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1919 — Suffering Caused by War. [ARTICLE]

Suffering Caused by War.

The name “barbed-wire disease" is found by Bing and Vischer to have probably originated in Switzerland, and it applies to a very marked functional mental disorder. The symptoms, recognizable in most men confined more than six months behind barbed-wire fencing, sre severe in about 10 per cent of all prisoners. Increased irritability appears first, fallowed by diminished power of concentration. and there is much complaint of loss of memory of persons and* places. Insomnia is a secondary symptom. Some prisoners have diminished eyesight, many grow suspicious, all tend to pessimism, some reaching an extreme in several days at a time of speechless torpor. Forgetfulness of words is very striking.