34. Inventing the Concept of Electrocution as a Solution to Shellshock
Electric shock as a solution for shellshock was not invented by Germans, but they took that solution and ran with it. That treatment was the brainchild of English electro-physiologist Edgar Douglas Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian, who went on to win a Nobel Prize for physiology in 1932. During WWI, he devised an electric shock treatment for shell-shocked soldiers. He reasoned that pain was necessary to combine therapy with discipline, because shellshock sufferers were suspected of malingering.
Because shellshock was often seen as malingering, military authorities were reluctant to “reward” sufferers with adequate rest and relaxation which we now know are among the most effective means for treating PTSD. The goal was to send shell-shocked soldiers back to the front as quickly as possible, so an unpleasant treatment such as electric shock was seen as an appropriate coercive therapy.