Who's Who: Lewis Yealland
Updated - Sunday, 7 July, 2002

Dr. Lewis Ralph Yealland (1884-19??) was a Canadian neurologist with a reputation for 'curing' shell-shocked patients and ensuring their return to the trenches in short order.

Often caricatured as heartless and unscientific Yealland - who was based at the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic in London - favoured electric-shock methodology as a means of treating hysteria, and was also an exponent of co-called 'auto-suggestion'.

For example Yealland treated a mute soldier by tying him in a chair, applying electric shocks to his throat while encouraging him to "remember, you must behave as the hero I expect you to be... A man who has gone through so many battles should have better control of himself".

In 1918 Yealland published his wartime findings in Hysterical Disorders of Warfare, in which he recommended treatment by chastisement.

"Suicide Ditch" was British slang for a front-line trench.

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