“There is no justification,” says Gaupp, “for calling every instance of this a case of malingering or simulation. There are quite capable men of irreproachable character whose nervous system is positively unfitted for the hardships and horrors of war. They have enthusiasm and the best of intentions but these cease to inspire them when the horrors and terrors come. Their inner strength rapidly decreases, and it only requires an acute storm to break upon the nervous system (such as the explosion of a shell or the death of comrades) for their self-control to vanish completely. Then automatically their condition changes into what is popularly called ‘hysteria.’ The exhausted mind then feels that it is no longer master of the situation, and therefore ‘takes refuge in disease.’ At first, as a rule, obvious signs of terror and anxiety (trembling, twitching, etc.) manifest themselves; if these are cured there still remain chronic symptoms of hypochondria and despondency. Time, however, has its effect in many of these cases.”[22] If a patient comes into the hands of a physician before the processes of rationalisation and systematisation have become established, the medical officer should be able to meet his difficulties, and help him correctly to interpret his unusual experiences by explaining to him their origin and nature. “The application of discreet sympathy and tact by a physician who endeavours to discover something of the man’s past mental history may be able to reassure a patient upon his particular trouble with the happiest of results. To a man quite unacquainted with text-books or speculation on psychology there can be no darker mystery than the working of other people’s minds. To such a man the natural conclusion is that his own mental processes are universal and normal. But if, as a result of some nerve-shattering experience of warfare his mind suddenly develops a trick which was quite unknown to him before, though this development may be far from abnormal, to the troubled patient it may seem to be an unquestionable symptom of madness.”[23] Many of the cases in which a patient has merely needed reassuring have been of this type. A short and very simple explanation of some elementary facts of psychology is often sufficient to bring about an immense change in the man’s condition, which has led to his curing himself. And this is the ideal method of cure.