World War I

By W. H. R. Rivers. A scanned copy.

Online copy of the book by Grafton Elliot Smith, MA. MD. FRCP. FRS. and Tom Hatherly Pear BSc. First edition 1917.

Oxford’s Vera Brittain collection.


Brigham Young University on medical aspects of WWI.


The Austrian state archive on hygiene and sanitation in the First World War. It also has information on wounded soldiers and electro-shock therapy. There are visuals. The site is in German.


Links to various medical sources online, compiled by BYU.

"When maimed soldiers returned from the Western Front, sculptors worked to allow them to 'be able to appear in public unnoticed' by re-creating their countenances." Article from The Atlantic.


In the collective mind, [PSTD] is associated with the legacy of the Vietnam War disaster. Earlier conflicts had given birth to terms, such as “soldier's heart, ” “shell shock,” and “war neurosis.” The latter diagnosis was equivalent to the névrose de guerre and Kriegsneurose of French and German scientific literature. This article describes how the immediate and chronic consequences of psychological trauma made their way into medical literature, and how concepts of diagnosis and treatment evolved over time.