Edgar Adrian (1889–1977) and Shell Shock Electrotherapy: A Forgotten History?

Abstract

The English electrophysiologist Edgar Adrian (1889–1977) was the recipient of the Nobel Prize for physiology in 1932 for his research on the functions of neurons. During World War I, at Queen Square in London, he devised an intensive electrotherapeutic treatment for shell-shocked soldiers. The procedure, developed with Lewis Yealland (1884–1954), was similar to “torpillage,” the faradic psychotherapy used in France. Adrian and Yealland considered that the pain accompanying the use of faradic current was necessary for both therapeutic and disciplinary reasons, especially because of the suspicion of malingering. According to Adrian, this controversial electric treatment was only able to remove motor or sensitive symptoms. After the war, he finally admitted that war hysteria was a complex and difficult phenomenon.