The relationship between the First World War and neurology: 100 years of "Shell Shock" / A relação entre a Primeira Guerra Mundial e a neurologia: 100 anos do "Shell Shock"

ABSTRACT The First World War was a global war, beginning on 28 July 1914, until 11 November 1918. Soon after the beginning of the war, there was an “epidemic” of neurological conversion symptoms. Soldiers on both sides started to present in large numbers with neurological symptoms, such as dizziness, tremor, paraplegia, tinnitus, amnesia, weakness, headache and mutism of psychosomatic origin. This condition was known as shell shock, or “war neurosis”. Because medically unexplained symptoms remain a major challenge, and considering the close relationship of symptoms described in shell shock with clinical neurology, we should study their history in order to improve future care.

RESUMO A Primeira Guerra Mundial foi uma guerra global, iniciada em 28 de julho de 1914, até 11 de novembro de 1918. Logo após o início da guerra, exatamente há 100 anos, houve uma “epidemia” de sintomas neurológicos conversivos. Soldados de ambos os lados começaram a apresentar com frequência sintomas neurológicos, tais como: tontura, tremor, paraplegia, zumbido, amnésia, fraqueza, cefaleia e mutismo de origem psicossomática. Esta condição ficou conhecida como shell shock, ou “neurose de guerra”. Como muitos sintomas e doenças inexplicadas continuam sendo um grande desafio, e considerando a estreita relação dos sintomas descritos no shell shock com a neurologia clínica, torna-se importante estudar essa parte da história com o objetivo de entendermos e melhorarmos os cuidados aos pacientes.

Representaciones sociales de la primera guerra mundial en estudiantes de psicología e historia social / Representations of the first world war in psychology and history students

Desde la perspectiva de las representaciones sociales (RS), surge una línea de investigación que toma a la historia como objeto de representación. Los estudios previos muestran que los eventos más mencionados al recordar la historia universal se relacionan con guerras y revoluciones -denominado sesgo bélico (Liu et al., 2009). El objetivo general del presente trabajo es indagar en las RS de la Primera Guerra Mundial (PGM) que tiene un grupo de estudiantes de psicología e historia (n=144; 69,9% mujeres; edad=31,09, Min.:19-Máx.:64). Para la recolección de la información se utilizó un cuestionario diseñado para el proyecto Cooperación Europea en Ciencia y Tecnología (COST) IS 1205.En relación a la estructura representacional aparecen evocaciones relacionadas con aspectos negativos y característicos de la PGM. Se observan posicionamientos diferenciales en función de la carrera de estudio, siendo los estudiantes de historia los que exhiben mayores conocimientos, importancia y adjudicación de sentimientos hacia la PGM.

From the perspective of social representations (SR), appears a line of research which focuses on history as a representational object. Previous studies present that the events more mentioned when remember the universal history are related to wars and revolutions ­named military bias (Liu et al., 2009). The overall objective of this study is to investigate the SR of the First World War (WWI) which has a group of students of psychology and history (n=144; 69,9% women; age=31,09, Min.:19-Máx.:64). For collecting information was used the questionnaire designed for de project European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) IS 1205. In connection to the representational structure appear evocations related to negative and characteristics aspects of the WWI. Differential positioning's are observed depending on the study career, being history students who exhibit greater knowledge, importance and assignment of feelings to the WWI.