How many a brief bombardment had its long-delayed after-effect in the minds of these survivors, many of whom had looked at their companions and laughed while inferno did its best to destroy them. Not then was their evil hour; but now; now, in the sweating suffocation of nightmare, in paralysis of limbs, in the stammering of dislocated speech. Worst of all, in the disintegration of those qualities through which they had been so gallant and selfless and uncomplaining—this, in the finer types of men, was the unspeakable tragedy of shell shock . . . In the name of civilization these soldiers had been martyred, and it remained for civilization to prove that their martyrdom wasn’t a dirty swindle.

—SIEGFRIED SASSOON

 

A modern disease, as it is comprehended in a laboratory, is explained to the laboratory technician, the student, and the layman as a phenomenon made up of its own pimples, rash, swelling and development. The disease is never presented as a creature—real or metaphorical—a creature that might have an existence separate from its description, even as you and I have an existence from the fact that we weigh so many pounds and stand so many inches tall.

—NORMAN MAILER