Brian Galloway for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is apparently not a postmodern phenomenon; it’s not even a modern phenomenon, according to researchers from Anglia Ruskin University.
Combing through ancient Mesopotamian translations, Professor Hacker Hughes and his team found evidence of the disorder as far back as 1300BC, during the Assyrian Dynasty. Soldiers claimed they were visited by the “ghosts they faced in battle,” and “suddenly lost sight in both eyes, though nothing had touched [them].”
“The sorts of symptoms after battle were very clearly what we would call now post-traumatic stress symptoms,” said Professor Hughes to the BBC.
“They described hearing and seeing ghosts talking to them,” he continued, “who would be the ghosts of people they’d killed in battle- and that’s exactly the experience of modern-day soldiers who’ve been involved in close hand-to-hand combat”
Professor Hughes concluded, “As long as there has been civilization and as long as there has been warfare, there have been post-traumatic symptoms. It’s not a 21st century thing.”
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