How was combat fatigue/PTSD handled prior to modern warfare?

>>875621
beating your wife or incarceration at bedlam

>>875621
It wasn't. Remember, the idea of unwanted mental conditions as something medical and not some evil spirit inside you is fairly recent.

>>875621
by recuperating with your buds on the journey home.

>>875621
There are some martial arts teachings on this, here is a quote from 'Ellis Amdur, a crisis intervention specialist and a shihan of two koryu

> To give an example of the multi-layering, in Araki-ryu, there is a specific incantation to return the spirits of the dead that one had killed on the battlefield, back to the grave. On one level - this is simple folk magic - and it was surely believed. On a second, simultaneous level, it was a method, culturally specific, to modulate post-traumatic stress disorder.

Alcohol and spousal abuse

>>875621
maybe lobotomy, I know booze was often prescribed for shit. amazing they thought it would cure things it was really just making worse

>>875639
so your saying that when people came home from the civil war and started running around there living rooms under the impression that people were firing cannons at them they simply ignored it.

>>875705
they did have morphine back then too, cutting edge doctors would have been like. drink tea and exercise more

>>875639
>the idea of unwanted mental conditions as something medical and not some evil spirit inside you is fairly recent
have you read even a single book about historical medicine?

>>875621
Given that they only started medicalising battle related melancholy in the US civil war, as people didn't perceive that it socially existed, they didn't handle it. Old soldiers drank and lived fucked up lives, but a claim that they had experienced "mind trauma" wasn't present.

File: Soldier after 72 hours of combat in Khe Sahn.jpg (808KB, 2016x3008px) Image search: [Google]

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>>875621
The Bible has an interesting piece on that. Numbers 31:15-24

15"Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

19 “Anyone who has killed someone or touched someone who was killed must stay outside the camp seven days. On the third and seventh days you must purify yourselves and your captives. 20 Purify every garment as well as everything made of leather, goat hair or wood.”

21 Then Eleazar the priest said to the soldiers who had gone into battle, “This is what is required by the law that the Lord gave Moses: 22 Gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, lead 23 and anything else that can withstand fire must be put through the fire, and then it will be clean. But it must also be purified with the water of cleansing. And whatever cannot withstand fire must be put through that water. 24 On the seventh day wash your clothes and you will be clean. Then you may come into the camp.”

After fighting in melee combat, the men also had to murder hundreds of women and children. They had to have been disturbed by that. Separation, cleansing and spiritualism all seem logical choices for ancient peoples without any knowledge of the brain like we have.

>>875621
It wasnt enough of an issue before ww1 to be addressed, it was just treated as insanity or cowardice

File: Tom_Lea_-_2000_Yard_Stare[1].jpg (396KB, 1000x1288px) Image search: [Google]

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>>875637
probably this - specially the first part.
i've once read about the scots returning home after some campaign prior to the napoleonic wars (can't remember which one) and since ptsd wasn't even a thing they had no support whatsoever and ended up destroying the communities they were in.

needless to say that the scots were very often the sacrificed ones during the british adventures all over the globe..
but before the whole social conquests that the republic brought us and even before threating pstd as a thing you were just sent home - where you would live the rest of your days as a broken, violent and futureless individual.

also, you were supposed to be thankful and happy to still be alive so you're supposed to be part of the lucky ones - which depending of your physical state and the development of your nation would range between beggary, banditry, plowing the fields or some related dead end activity with lots of time for you to dwell in your past and its chronic wounds

>>875760
Sounds more like your standard jewish cleanliness ritual to me

>>875621
They weren't pussys like modern vets and just toughened up and moved on

>>875813
Lol, the most insanely brave human beings who ever lived still routinely pissed themselves under sustained bombardment

>>875797
I'm sure that influenced it, but the isolation from the standard population seems to go deeper. Like they knew these guys were traumatized to varying degrees and did nit want them all returning home to splurge their war spoils on alcohol and whores
After a few days of dealing with what they did, spending hours cleaning every last bit of clothing and war spoils, and praying on what they did I can imagine it helped at least ease the men back into society

>>875821
It may well have helped, but is clearly just another example of a very common practice in hebrew religious law

>>875834
Sure, but it still answers "how was combat fatigue/PTSD handled prior to modern warfare?"

Religious, medical, psychological, or whatever stream of thought you get from reading those Bible verses it still shows a way ancient people's handled their warriors after combat

>>875844
Ehh maybe

>>875813
Wow, aren't you a great thinker. Have you been through many campaigns then, being such a badass? Or even the most basic form of military training?

Their mind wasn't that different, but you are right in one account, they kept their mouths shut.
That was the culture, but it was also more cowardly than facing their fears, since more often than not it was taken out on other people as has been mentioned in the thread.

Older relatives often told how it was when most teachers were war vets. Painful, that's how it was.

>>875621
Depends on the culture.

Romans virtuall all knew what it was, so it was less of an issue.

Individual men sought purification through bloodshed, Namely close combat with Romes enemies. Removed whatever stain on their honor or failing they were suffering from.


>all these idiots talking about wife beating
Yeah, not really how that works.