# Trench foot and shell shock - what were they called before WWI? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 8, 2014, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trench-foot-and-shell-shock-what-were-they-called-before-wwi/700803 "2014-10-08T22:35:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trench-foot-and-shell-shock-what-were-they-called-before-wwi/700803/1 "2014-10-08T22:35:29Z")
Shells and trenches, big parts of WWI that eventually figured into the names of two ailments from the conflict. But what were they called and what treatments existed before the shells and trenches? The earliest reference to what we’d now call PTSD is from the War Between the States called ‘Soldier’s Heart’, but I can’t find any pre-WWI info on trench foot. Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![dam0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@dam0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dam0)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trench-foot-and-shell-shock-what-were-they-called-before-wwi/700803/2 "2014-10-08T22:40:41Z")
If I recall correctly, Cowards, unfortunately is what shell shocked soldiers were called. And shot for it too. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trench-foot-and-shell-shock-what-were-they-called-before-wwi/700803/3 "2014-10-08T22:53:54Z")
Just from a quick perusal of the Wikipedia cites, it sounds like trench foot was called… frostbite. Aside from occurring in non-freezing temperatures, the symptoms were not too different. Early in WWI, the Americans [apparently had a variety of names](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1002454/?page=2) for it: frostbite, water bite, chilled foot, boot bite, and frigorism. Apparently it was first noticed [in Napoleon’s wars](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15617178). Maybe someone has access to the whole article, but from the abstract it seems they called it frostbite as well. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trench-foot-and-shell-shock-what-were-they-called-before-wwi/700803/4 "2014-10-08T22:56:02Z")
Trench foot - if and when it occurred, would probably just have been called sores or lesions of the foot - since that’s pretty much what it is. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trench-foot-and-shell-shock-what-were-they-called-before-wwi/700803/5 "2014-10-08T22:59:13Z")
> [@dam0](#): > > If I recall correctly, Cowards, unfortunately is what shell shocked soldiers were called. And shot for it too. I recall reading a US Army (I think, might have been British) psychiatrist report on battle fatigue, as they called it then, and the irony that fleeing from the field and reporting as a psych case were two manifestations of the same thing, but one gets court martial and the other gets help. @ **Dr. Strangelove** ; Interesting, what’d they call actual frostbite? Did they think they were just the same disease (both involve bits falling off your feet I suppose). ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trench-foot-and-shell-shock-what-were-they-called-before-wwi/700803/6 "2014-10-08T23:13:57Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > @ **Dr. Strangelove** ; Interesting, what’d they call actual frostbite? Did they think they were just the same disease (both involve bits falling off your feet I suppose). I’m sure they called actual frostbite by that term as well; as you say, it seems they just thought they were the same disease. Apparently it wasn’t until WWI that they understood that it was a different enough condition to warrant a different name. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trench-foot-and-shell-shock-what-were-they-called-before-wwi/700803/7 "2014-10-09T00:32:13Z")
suffering bad morale, they first took on heart sickness, lost all Flux of humour, and showed symptoms of Podagra and Pemphigus . Look them up [List of Old Diseases](http://www.lhaasdav.com/learningcenter/diseasesold.html) Of course a doctor may have ignored the gangrene … my joke diagnosis was to say said that the foot was falling off due to heart sickness ?? So old records don’t help so much. If the foot was infected for a long time, or after recovery, they might have called it Scirrhus… cancer !.. the skin of the foot grows all lumpy and they’d confuse it with cancer. ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trench-foot-and-shell-shock-what-were-they-called-before-wwi/700803/8 "2014-10-09T07:29:14Z")
During and after the American Civil War, they called it “Soldier’s Heart”. [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heart/themes/shellshock.html](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heart/themes/shellshock.html) ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trench-foot-and-shell-shock-what-were-they-called-before-wwi/700803/9 "2014-10-09T13:53:11Z")
I don’t know that trench foot or mouth was really much of a prevalent thing in armies prior to WWI- they didn’t spend a lot of time in wet boots in trenches prior to that. That’s not to say that it wasn’t something that happened to people, but it was probably not particularly common prior to the war. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trench-foot-and-shell-shock-what-were-they-called-before-wwi/700803/10 "2014-10-09T14:00:06Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I don’t know that trench foot or mouth was really much of a prevalent thing in armies prior to WWI- they didn’t spend a lot of time in wet boots in trenches prior to that. That’s not to say that it wasn’t something that happened to people, but it was probably not particularly common prior to the war. In the US Civil War, there were extensive periods of soldiers sitting in trenches. > [@](#): > > The Siege of Petersburg foreshadowed the trench warfare that was common in World War I, earning it a prominent position in military history. > **[Siege of Petersburg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Petersburg)** > > The Richmond–Petersburg campaign was a series of battles around Petersburg, Virginia, fought from June 9, 1864, to March 25, 1865, during the American Civil War. Although it is more popularly known as the siege of Petersburg, it was not a classic military siege, in which a city is encircled with fortifications blocking all routes of ingress and egress, nor was it strictly limited to actions against Petersburg. The campaign consisted of nine months of trench warfare in which Union forces comman... ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trench-foot-and-shell-shock-what-were-they-called-before-wwi/700803/11 "2014-10-09T14:45:59Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > During and after the American Civil War, they called it “Soldier’s Heart”. > > [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heart/themes/shellshock.html](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heart/themes/shellshock.html) Or “Da Costa’s Syndrome”, this is the farthest back I managed to find the medical profession taking notice of PTSD. > [@bump](#): > > I don’t know that trench foot or mouth was really much of a prevalent thing in armies prior to WWI- they didn’t spend a lot of time in wet boots in trenches prior to that. That’s not to say that it wasn’t something that happened to people, but it was probably not particularly common prior to the war. Interestingly the Bard mentions both PTSD and trenches (no mention of trench feet) in Henry IV Part I, Lady Percy diagnoses the titular king with it; _Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks; And given my treasures and my rights of thee To thick-eyed musing and cursed melancholy? In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch’d, And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars; Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed; Cry ‘Courage! to the field!’ And thou hast talk’d Of sallies and retires, of trenches…_