Shell-shock and other neuropsychiatric problems : $b Presented in five hundred and eighty-nine case histories from the war literature, 1914-1918Southard, Elmer Ernest
History
Shell-shock and other neuropsychiatric problems : $b Presented in five hundred and eighty-nine case histories from the war literature, 1914-1918
Southard, Elmer Ernest
War neuroses; World War, 1914-1918 -- Medical care; World War, 1914-1918 -- Psychological aspects
His memory grew better from his arrival at a hospital in the rear in
April. An attempt was made to remove the bullet in May, 1915. Though
the surgeon’s finger was pushed as far as the tentorium the patient
did not lose consciousness or sight, but on leaving the operating
room he fainted and, after a few days of restlessness and delirium,
he became completely blind. There was a cerebral hernia difficult to
reduce. Vision became a little better and light and persons could
be distinguished at the time when he was retired. A month after the
operation there was a convulsive crisis beginning in the left arm,
affecting the legs and ending in unconsciousness. Several similar
crises occurred in August, sometimes with and sometimes without loss
of consciousness. Later these crises began to be limited to the left
side and then to be ushered in by visual hallucinations. At home he
was unable to care for, clothe or feed himself. The crises became more
frequent. The visual hallucinations began to dominate.
This situation lasted to February, 1916, when the blindness which had
been increasing since the onset of the hallucinations became complete.
The crises now became less frequent and intense. Headaches not severe
were exaggerated after seizures. The patient acted like a totally
blind person and said that he had before him a uniform and constant
gray without any light or dark spots or any color. Upon this background
bizarre pictures, caricatures, disguised persons, animals or nameless
things appeared colorless without relief, in silhouette, but highly
suggestive of reality to such a degree that at first, according to the
patient, he had made gestures to reach, or push aside these pictures.
The crises were Jacksonian.
Pallor, perspiration, shivering, irresponsiveness, clonic spasms of
left arm followed. The patient always had a premonition permitting him
to get into bed if he was sitting, for example, in his chair. Sometimes
there was a dizzy sensation as if the body were being rotated to the
left. This sensation did not occur at the beginning of the seizure and
the patient fought against it, turning to the right. Sometimes he felt
as if he were sliding at great speed down an inclined plane. Headaches
and sleepiness followed, but there was never any complete loss of
consciousness of memory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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