[Medical history of trauma]

'Trauma' tends to exceed human understanding. It disrespects boundaries, interrupts all kinds of units and makes them blend, it disturbs bodily and psychic organisms and upsets social and historical organization. Some characteristics of the history of trauma have their origin in this situation. One of them is the gradual extension for instance of the notion of 'trauma' which makes the surgical 'wound' (greek: trauma) evolve into a bio-psycho-social phenomenon. Other characteristics of the history of trauma are its association with questions of endogenous versus exogenous causes of suffering and with the issue of guilt and its recurrent falling into oblivion. The paper traces the history of traumatogenic illness from the simple wound to forensically important damages like the 'railway-injuries' entitling to claims for damages, to 'traumatic-' and 'war-neuroses' and finally to the more or less endemic 'posttraumatic stress syndrome' of present time.