Masson published Guillain and Barré’s 486-page volume Travaux de Neurologigue de Guerre in 1920 (Fig. 1), and they noted the following in their foreword:

“Ces travaux neurologiques ont été poursuivis aux Armées, dans des ambulances ou dans le Centre neurologique don’t nous avions la direction. Nous avons eu ainsi l'occasion d'examiner de nombreux blessés récents de l'encéphale ou de la moelle épinière, des commotionnés par déflagration d'explosifs et des malades atteints d'affections diverses du système nerveux”.

Cover page of Guillain and Barré’s book

(“This neurological work was continued in the Armed Forces, in ambulances or in the Neurological Center, which we directed. We thus had the opportunity to examine numerous recent injuries to the brain or spinal cord, those concussed by explosive blasts, and patients with various disorders of the nervous system”.)

The book had many clinical cases and descriptions of neurologic injury from large projectiles or blast by the explosion of mines, spinal cord trauma, and a study on the neurology of asphyxiating gases. The first 90 pages involve clinical descriptions of the medial plantar reflex and its relationship with the Achilles reflex and changes in reflexes with neurosyphilis and diphtheria before moving on to brain and spine lesions. (“Commotionnés nous avons groupé, dans ce volume, nos travaux en six parties: (1) Sémiologie nerveuse; (2) Plaies de l’encéphale; (3) Plaies de la moelle épinière; (4) Les Commotions par déflagration d'explosifs sans plaie extérieure; (5) Pathologie des nerfs crâniens et rachidians”.)

He noted on the reflexes that “Le réflexe péronéo-fémoral postérieur est aboli dans les lésions médullaires destructives ou profondes de la region lombo-sacrée (cinquième segment lombaire, premier et deuxième segments sacrés), dans le tabes, les radiculites (cinquième racine lombaire, première et deuxième racines sacrées), certaines névrites infectieuses ou toxiques, les lésions traumatiques du nerf sciatique.” (“The posterior peroneus-femoral reflex is abolished in destructive or deep spinal cord lesions of the lumbosacral region (fifth lumbar segment, first and second sacral segments), in tabes, radiculitis (fifth lumbar root, first and second sacral roots), certain infectious or toxic neuritis and traumatic lesions of the sciatic nerve.”) This reflex has not survived as an especially useful reflex because it is exceedingly difficult to elicit.

Some notable cases were described in a case addendum. This included the two cases Guillain and Barré had already reported with André Strohl, a syndrome that would later become their eponym. The book also includes a forgotten case associated with antityphoid vaccination resulting in a “Landry” syndrome. It has been known that Guillain did not accept the more severe forms of acute inflammatory polyneuropathy described by Landry as part of his syndrome. But it must therefore be considered the very first case of GBS after vaccination.

The neurologist Charles Chatelin published two books with the intent to optimize the practice of brain surgery in the context of war: Blessures du Crane et du Cerveau. Clinique et traitement (Wounds of the Skull and Brain; Their Clinical Forms and Medical and Surgical Treatment) in 1917 (Fig. 2) and Traitement opératoire des plaies du crâne (Operative Treatment of Skull Wounds) in 1918 as a part of the book collection Précis de Médecine et de Chirurgie de guerre (Medicine and War Surgery).

Blessures du Crane et du Cerveau included the results of more than 5,000 soldiers with head injuries and was considered one of the most important treatises ever written on war neurology at that time. Chatelin cared for the wounded in the Militarized Neurological Centre at La Salpetriere with the neurosurgeon Thierry de Martel. Chatelin described the circumstances of the injury as accurately as possible and laid out the craniocerebral topography of the lesions. He noted that significant loss of cerebral tissue in the frontal area seemed to have the least profound consequences. Most of the descriptions are basic neurology. But important is his insight in postsurgical infections, including the recognition of meningitis and abscesses and posttraumatic seizures with high mortality once they become status epilepticus. In the short term, these infections were the primary cause of mortality in injured soldiers. There was little that could be done for patients with meningitis. Abscesses were drained, but again, mortality in the preantibiotic era was extremely high [2, 11,12,13].

Cover of book of Chatelin and de Martel’s book

Finally, the neurologist Paul Sollier edited a sizable book (Fig. 3) on neurotrauma, but the themes remained the same; topology, localization, seizures, and Jacksonian fits, (which he named Bravais-Jacksonienne, adding a Frenchman to a British observation.) Considerable attention was directed toward neurosurgical repair of trauma to the skull and brain [14]. The World War I helmets were not protective (Fig. 4).

Cover or Sollier’s book

A pierced World War I Helmet (from Sollier’s text)