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HOSPITAL FOOD
249 "
"
COURAGE
Courage," writes Lord Moran, is a moral quality." Later he writes, " Courage is will power." These two statements are bound to have great weight coming from such a source. There is obviously much truth in both; yet we cannot help reflecting that Lord Moran writes too exclusively of courage as seen in war. The idea that courage is will-power is one that has been strongly stressed by the psychological department of the German High Command, which is much interested in the readiness of the soldier to apply his will to military acts. But courage is a living function of a man’s mind, and can be found in all sorts of situations apart from those of war. Thus there is the courage of the conscientious objector, of childbirth, of the conference chamber, of the cat burglar playing with discovery and sudden death as his stakes. And there is an amazing courage to be seen even on the scaffold. It is true that will-power must enter into many of these examples, but the derivation of all of them from moral qualities is more questionable. Such conceptions as these merit our careful attention, and discussion is likely to be exhaustive among readers of
LORD MoRAN’s Anatom1! of Courageis an essay on the nature of courage in fighting. men, illustrated by a diary which he kept as a battalion medical officer in the war of 1914-18. Those who shared his experience will relive the familiar scenes here described with artistry and insight. He brings back that torn countryside of death, with its muddy trenches gashing the soil, the slippery steps into dark damp dug-outs, lit by the guttering candle’so often snuffed by the blast of shellfire. The reader almost feels anew the pitiless rain and the searching winds of the rolling country of the Somme ; the familiar smells of Maple Copse and Delville Wood steal once more into another war-time air. A nostalgia youth will descend, not unpleasantly, on 4or departed an ageing man who thirty years ago was living the selfless existence of a battalion " MO." Lord more than paint the sombre battle country ; does n he #ves’ us glimpses of villages behind the lines, of those won3erful periods of leisure, of deep sleep between sheets, of old people gathering at the cottage the Anatomy of Courage. doors to smile wistfull1’at the departing men when the As for the future, Lord Moran points out that " when end of rest inevitably came and singing soldiers took an army is being trained to it must begin by weeding their way back to their calvary beyond the golden corn. out those whose character or temperament makes them He gives us brilliant portraits. And like a thread of incapable of fighting." This is the very kernel of military silver running through the narrativethe medical reader mental hygiene. He insists that this is not possible can trace and the anxiety of the doctor for as a result of a brief interview by recruiting boards ; a his men, can sense something of the service given to careful process of combined testing and observation is them, - and something, too, of the pain with which what is necessary during the early days of training. This he sometimes had to harden his heart and send them is a matter for scientific medical and psychological back to their duties. investigation, which is already established in the Services In the analysis of courage some perhaps may feel that and is producing clear results. For the future holds a Lord Moran has a less certain touch. Often he shows an desperate need for high intelligence, to be used wherever almost uncanny understanding of the discontents of it can be found. It is all too scarce, as Lord Moran fighting men and their sources ; yet elsewhere there hints. The mechanisation of war means that heavy seems to be a sudden failure of appreciation of a soldier’s demands are made on the more intelligent for the manuinner thoughts and fears. Describing the battle dreams facture, maintenance, and care of a legion of mechanical of nearly all fighting men, he rightly insists that " we contrivances, which inevitably means that an ever cannot cleanse our thoughts of fear by repression of the smaller proportion of man-power is available for the doubts and hesitations whichoccupy and mock the actual fighting, whether on land, at sea, or in the air. minds of men’ in war." Thus and in many other vivid Yet the less intelligent can be used if properly placed. phrases he shows his remarkable insight into the war That will be the task of selection procedures. disorders of the mind. But many will question his view The book ends with a chapter on leadership ; and of death in the field as " a fine free setting forth ... the reader is left with an urgent sense of having to read which comes to a man in. the spring time, before age and the whole again. It expresses the author’s pride in his disease have soiled his body and the. traffic of cities country’s fighting men, his devotion to the soldier in his stained his soul." Such a view is not likely to appeal trials and triumphs, and his bitterness for him when folly to a young soldier; indeed it is probable that he would and the pursuit of ease have deprived him of the right have a word for it in lively disagreement. " Whom the equipment and the right leaders. In reading its burning gods love die young " is surely a resigned and tame and burnished English, we are tempted to modify a negation of all that a doctor should stand for. On sentence of Christopher Morley’s : " Every soldier has another page Lord Moran portrays a good soldier shaken his own private crown of thorns ; but what matters is into a stupor by a near miss, and concludes: " When this whether he can wear it over his ear." That ability the sort of thing happens to a good fellow it is final." This British soldier has possessed for centuries; but one again seems unjustifiably hopeless in a therapeutic day he will ask who places the crown on his brow every sense. In this war the sergeant would retire to a Corps time he must march to war. exhaustion centre little further away than the transport lines of the,,old war, and would have a very good chance HOSPITAL FOOD of returning to his work in a fortnight. Instead of and three special articles on this A article leading which/in -the old war, " he must be hurried away to in our columns last month. A number subject appeared a shell shook hospital with a rabble of misshape-n of have asked us to supply copies for distribution readers o’ecMfevoiMcMOMs." This was an extract from the to hospital committees and others interested. Accordand it well be that it Lord does not diary, may express we have the articles as a small booklet reprinted ingly Moran’s present views.It is not always the townsmen which is obtainable from THE LANCET Offices, 7, Adam who break in war. Indeed, it is certain that neurosis Street, Adelphi, London, WC2, price 6d. (postage Id.). and delinquency are highest in units in which intelligence is lowest. Such units are to be found among countrymen, especially when composed of men drawn from
- ny
and
an1-.-children
fight
appreciate
rural areas in which inter-marriage, bad housing, and mental deficiency are indigenous. Surely the Cockney soldier is of historic stout heart, and what of the Clydeside battalions from Glasgow ? 1. The Anatomy of Courage. Pp.216. 8s.
By Lord Moran, MC, PRCP. Constable.
A BRITISH COUNCIL FOR REHABILITATION has been
formed, which aims, inter alia, at securing the active cooperation of commerce, industry, and professional bodies in -the problem of resettlement. Mr. H. E. Griffiths is chairman of the executive committee, whose members include Mr. E. S. Evans, Dr. F. R. G. Heaf, Dr. Donald Norris, and Dr. F. S. Cooksey.
"
COURAGE
Courage," writes Lord Moran, is a moral quality." Later he writes, " Courage is will power." These two statements are bound to have great weight coming from such a source. There is obviously much truth in both; yet we cannot help reflecting that Lord Moran writes too exclusively of courage as seen in war. The idea that courage is will-power is one that has been strongly stressed by the psychological department of the German High Command, which is much interested in the readiness of the soldier to apply his will to military acts. But courage is a living function of a man’s mind, and can be found in all sorts of situations apart from those of war. Thus there is the courage of the conscientious objector, of childbirth, of the conference chamber, of the cat burglar playing with discovery and sudden death as his stakes. And there is an amazing courage to be seen even on the scaffold. It is true that will-power must enter into many of these examples, but the derivation of all of them from moral qualities is more questionable. Such conceptions as these merit our careful attention, and discussion is likely to be exhaustive among readers of
LORD MoRAN’s Anatom1! of Courageis an essay on the nature of courage in fighting. men, illustrated by a diary which he kept as a battalion medical officer in the war of 1914-18. Those who shared his experience will relive the familiar scenes here described with artistry and insight. He brings back that torn countryside of death, with its muddy trenches gashing the soil, the slippery steps into dark damp dug-outs, lit by the guttering candle’so often snuffed by the blast of shellfire. The reader almost feels anew the pitiless rain and the searching winds of the rolling country of the Somme ; the familiar smells of Maple Copse and Delville Wood steal once more into another war-time air. A nostalgia youth will descend, not unpleasantly, on 4or departed an ageing man who thirty years ago was living the selfless existence of a battalion " MO." Lord more than paint the sombre battle country ; does n he #ves’ us glimpses of villages behind the lines, of those won3erful periods of leisure, of deep sleep between sheets, of old people gathering at the cottage the Anatomy of Courage. doors to smile wistfull1’at the departing men when the As for the future, Lord Moran points out that " when end of rest inevitably came and singing soldiers took an army is being trained to it must begin by weeding their way back to their calvary beyond the golden corn. out those whose character or temperament makes them He gives us brilliant portraits. And like a thread of incapable of fighting." This is the very kernel of military silver running through the narrativethe medical reader mental hygiene. He insists that this is not possible can trace and the anxiety of the doctor for as a result of a brief interview by recruiting boards ; a his men, can sense something of the service given to careful process of combined testing and observation is them, - and something, too, of the pain with which what is necessary during the early days of training. This he sometimes had to harden his heart and send them is a matter for scientific medical and psychological back to their duties. investigation, which is already established in the Services In the analysis of courage some perhaps may feel that and is producing clear results. For the future holds a Lord Moran has a less certain touch. Often he shows an desperate need for high intelligence, to be used wherever almost uncanny understanding of the discontents of it can be found. It is all too scarce, as Lord Moran fighting men and their sources ; yet elsewhere there hints. The mechanisation of war means that heavy seems to be a sudden failure of appreciation of a soldier’s demands are made on the more intelligent for the manuinner thoughts and fears. Describing the battle dreams facture, maintenance, and care of a legion of mechanical of nearly all fighting men, he rightly insists that " we contrivances, which inevitably means that an ever cannot cleanse our thoughts of fear by repression of the smaller proportion of man-power is available for the doubts and hesitations whichoccupy and mock the actual fighting, whether on land, at sea, or in the air. minds of men’ in war." Thus and in many other vivid Yet the less intelligent can be used if properly placed. phrases he shows his remarkable insight into the war That will be the task of selection procedures. disorders of the mind. But many will question his view The book ends with a chapter on leadership ; and of death in the field as " a fine free setting forth ... the reader is left with an urgent sense of having to read which comes to a man in. the spring time, before age and the whole again. It expresses the author’s pride in his disease have soiled his body and the. traffic of cities country’s fighting men, his devotion to the soldier in his stained his soul." Such a view is not likely to appeal trials and triumphs, and his bitterness for him when folly to a young soldier; indeed it is probable that he would and the pursuit of ease have deprived him of the right have a word for it in lively disagreement. " Whom the equipment and the right leaders. In reading its burning gods love die young " is surely a resigned and tame and burnished English, we are tempted to modify a negation of all that a doctor should stand for. On sentence of Christopher Morley’s : " Every soldier has another page Lord Moran portrays a good soldier shaken his own private crown of thorns ; but what matters is into a stupor by a near miss, and concludes: " When this whether he can wear it over his ear." That ability the sort of thing happens to a good fellow it is final." This British soldier has possessed for centuries; but one again seems unjustifiably hopeless in a therapeutic day he will ask who places the crown on his brow every sense. In this war the sergeant would retire to a Corps time he must march to war. exhaustion centre little further away than the transport lines of the,,old war, and would have a very good chance HOSPITAL FOOD of returning to his work in a fortnight. Instead of and three special articles on this A article leading which/in -the old war, " he must be hurried away to in our columns last month. A number subject appeared a shell shook hospital with a rabble of misshape-n of have asked us to supply copies for distribution readers o’ecMfevoiMcMOMs." This was an extract from the to hospital committees and others interested. Accordand it well be that it Lord does not diary, may express we have the articles as a small booklet reprinted ingly Moran’s present views.It is not always the townsmen which is obtainable from THE LANCET Offices, 7, Adam who break in war. Indeed, it is certain that neurosis Street, Adelphi, London, WC2, price 6d. (postage Id.). and delinquency are highest in units in which intelligence is lowest. Such units are to be found among countrymen, especially when composed of men drawn from
- ny
and
an1-.-children
fight
appreciate
rural areas in which inter-marriage, bad housing, and mental deficiency are indigenous. Surely the Cockney soldier is of historic stout heart, and what of the Clydeside battalions from Glasgow ? 1. The Anatomy of Courage. Pp.216. 8s.
By Lord Moran, MC, PRCP. Constable.
A BRITISH COUNCIL FOR REHABILITATION has been
formed, which aims, inter alia, at securing the active cooperation of commerce, industry, and professional bodies in -the problem of resettlement. Mr. H. E. Griffiths is chairman of the executive committee, whose members include Mr. E. S. Evans, Dr. F. R. G. Heaf, Dr. Donald Norris, and Dr. F. S. Cooksey.