238 notes to chapter 5
- Owen and Bell, Wilfred Owen, Collected Letters, 497.
- His complete medical board report is as follows:
In March 1917 he fell down a well at Bouchoir, and was momentarily stunned.
He was under Medical treatment for 3 weeks, and then resumed duty. About the
middle of April he was blown up by a shell explosion while he was asleep. On
May 1st he was observed to be shaky and tremulous, and his conduct and man-
ner were peculiar, and his memory was confused. The R.M.C. sent him to No.
41 Sty. Gailly where he was under observation and treatment by Capt. Brown,
R.A.M.C., Neurological Specialist, for a month. On 7/6/17 he was transferred
to No. 1. G. H. Etretat, and on 16/6/17 to the Welsh Hospital Netley. There
is little abnormality to be observed but he seems to be of a highly strung tem-
perament. He has slept well while here. He leaves Hospital today transferred to
Craiglockhart War Hospital, Edinburgh, for special observation and treatment.
This report can be found at http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/jtap/images/misc/pro/
proceedings.jpg (last accessed June 5, 2011).
- Box 3, Owen MSS, Oxford English Faculty Library (OEF), Fasc. BB Owen
MSS OEF 427. - The Hydra ( January 1918).
- “Do Plants Think?” was the title of Owen’s first field club presentation.
- Owen and Bell, Wilfred Owen, Collected Letters, 475.
- For detailed theories about Owen’s pararhyme, see Welland, Wilfred Owen: A
Critical Study; Hibberd, Owen the Poet; and Stallworthy, Wilfred Owen. - For a brief discussion of other hospital literary magazines, see Peter Leese,
“‘Why are They Not Cured?’ British Shellshock Treatment During the Great War,”
205–21. For more on Brock and shell-shock treatments, see Webb, “‘Dottyville’ —
Craiglockhart War Hospital and shell-shock treatments in the First World War,” 342–
46; Crossman, “The Hydra, Captain A.J. Brock and the Treatment of Shell-Shock in
Edinburgh,”119–23; Cantor “Between Galen, Geddes, and the Gael: Arthur Brock,
Modernity, and Medical Humanism in Early Twentieth-Century Scotland,” 1–41. - Owen and Bell, Wilfred Owen, Collected Letters, 508–9. He is not referring to
Captain Rivers, here, but the military doctor stationed at Casualty Clearing, none
other than Rivers’s mentor, Captain William Brown. - Brock, REA, 28,
- From Brophy and Partridge, The Long Trail:
Field Punishment was extremely harsh. Field Punishment Number One, for ex-
ample, consisted of the offender being tied, like one crucified, to a gunwheel by
the wrists and the ankles for one hour in the morning and one in the evening for
as many days as were specified up to 28. This was meant to humiliate as well as to
exhaust him, and his comrades were seemingly expected to jeer at him. It has
been stated that some unfortunate men were so lashed to guns in action. (123) - See his manuscript pages, e.g. “An Imperial Eleg y,” available on the First World
War Digital Archive: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/item/4614 (last
accessed May 29, 2011).