Psychogenic Illness on the Battlefield: From the Civil War to Gulf War Syndrome

Abstract

In this chapter we address claims that ‘Havana Syndrome’ is a novel clinical entity that has never been previously encountered by physicians. For over a century, and coinciding with advancements in medical surveillance, a curious pattern has emerged among soldiers returning from the theatre of war: the appearance of clusters of unexplained symptoms that parallel the complaints experienced by Embassy staff in Cuba. During the First World War and Civil War it was named shell shock and soldier’s heart. In the Second World War it was dubbed Combat Stress Reaction. During the Vietnam War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was used to describe the condition, while more recently it has been labeled Gulf War Syndrome. The common theme in these conditions is the appearance of psychogenic symptoms in soldiers exposed to the trauma of war. These illness clusters typically involve the appearance of persistent neurological complaints that can and have been misdiagnosed as concussions and brain damage. The American diplomats were being continuously surveilled in a hostile environment amid unfamiliar sounds that were framed within the Cold War context of Cuban-American relations, giving rise to a folk belief that they were being targeted with an acoustical weapon.