“The Most Extensive Experiment that the Imagination Can Conceive”

Abrupt treatments of hysteria during World War I, 1914–18

“…Simulated surgery and spinal taps under anaesthesia (the patient believing it to be a surgical treatment) were not infrequently performed by German doctors (Eckart, 2000). Dr Ninian Bruce, attending a blind Gallipoli survivor, explained that the eye had not been injured but was weak; he advised the man that he would give a series of (normal saline) injections to the temple which would restore the sight of the eye, and indeed they did (Bruce, 1916).…”

“…The most dramatic procedure may have been that devised for the treatment of functional aphasia by Dr O. Muck, an Essen neurologist. An instrument with a little ball at the top was shoved into the patient’s larynx, and suffocation was threatened: ‘The result was a moment of fright, in which the patient held his breathe, relaxed his tongue and let out a scream.’ Genuine healing could only be achieved by producing real anxiety, according to Muck (Eckart, 2000: 144–5). Reputedly, if faradism was not available, a Dr Garel gave a vigorous and sudden blow to the epigastrium, simultaneously with the patient’s endeavour to imitate the movement of the doctor’s lips (Southard, 1919: 723–4).…”

‘Comradeship’ and ‘Friendship’: Masculinity and Militarisation in Germany's Homosexual Emancipation Movement after the First World War

“…Though it was a deeply traumatic event, the war also served as a kind of experiment for scientists, including sexologists, to examine the bodies and minds of men under circumstances of extreme stress. 31 While the GdE celebrated the virtues of militarism and the SPD-oriented WhK was more sceptical of war's supposedly positive qualities, both would ultimately embrace the war's potential for gay men.…”