War Syndromes and Their Evaluation: From the U.S. Civil War to the Persian Gulf War

Purpose: To better understand the health problems of veterans of the Persian Gulf War by analyzing previous war-related illnesses and identifying possible unifying factors. Data Source: English-language articles and books on war-related illnesses published since 1863 that were lo-cated primarily through a manual search of bibliographies. Data Extraction: Publications were assessed for informa-tion on the clinical characteristics of war-related illnesses and the research methods used to evaluate such illnesses. Data Synthesis: Poorly understood war syndromes have been associated with armed conflicts at least since the U.S. Civil War. Although these syndromes have been character-ized by similar symptoms (fatigue, shortness of breath, headache, sleep disturbance, forgetfulness, and impaire