Once Myers was there, his research credentials made him a natural choice to study the mysteries of shell shock in France. The War Office had turned him down for overseas service because of his age (he was 42), but undeterred, he crossed to France on his own initiative and secured a post at a hospital opened by the Duchess of Westminster in the casino at Le Touquet. However, at the outbreak of the war, Myers felt compelled to return to clinical practice to assist the war effort. Shortly after qualifying as a physician, he took an academic post at Cambridge, running an experimental psychology laboratory. Myers had been educated at Caius College Cambridge and trained in medicine at St. Myers, a medically trained psychologist, as consulting psychologist to the British Expeditionary Force to offer opinions on cases of shell shock and gather data for a policy to address the burgeoning issue of psychiatric battle casualties.
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In an effort to better understand and treat the condition, the Army appointed Charles S. Shell shock took the British Army by surprise. Because many of the symptoms were physical, it bore little overt resemblance to the modern diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder. It was often diagnosed when a soldier was unable to function and no obvious cause could be identified.
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Symptoms included fatigue, tremor, confusion, nightmares and impaired sight and hearing. The term "shell shock" was coined by the soldiers themselves. Not only did it affect increasing numbers of frontline troops serving in World War I, British Army doctors were struggling to understand and treat the disorder.
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By the winter of 1914–15, "shell shock" had become a pressing medical and military problem.