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
February 19, no mental disorder. Headache and lassitude. Neck stiff,
Kernig’s sign marked. Lumbar puncture yielded a fluid now puriform;
antimeningococcus serum injected. February 20, lifting the head
produced opisthotonos. Labial herpes. The fluid yielded, besides
meningococci, also endothelial cells. Serum injected. February 21,
fibrin in fluid; serum injected. February 22, no head symptoms. Herpes
more intense, involving also arms. Tongue coated. Temperature 37.5,
evening 38.3. February 23, meningococci and lymphocytes in fluid.
February 24, left knee swollen. Serum injected; puncture fluid showed
meningococci and polynucleosis. Fluid from knee showed polynuclear
cells without organisms. February 25, patient reached evening
temperature of 39.5; serum injected. A few meningococci, altered
polynuclear leucocytes. February 26, patient rigid, tongue coated,
serum injection. Rare meningococci, degenerated polynuclear leucocytes.
February 27, rigidity decreased, evening temperature 37.7. February
28, Kernig’s sign absent. Herpes dry. Serum injection. Fluid clear;
lymphocytes and polynuclear cells; no meningococci. March 6, painful
inguinal gland on the left side. March 7, epididymitis left (mumps two
years before, with headache two weeks and double orchitis). March 9,
serum eruption. March 17, epididymitis practically absent. Lymph node
painful. Later data impossible to get, except that there was apparently
an arthritis of the hip and a sacral decubitus with eventual recovery.
Shell-explosion: Meningitic syndrome, fourteen months.
=Case 109.= (PITRES AND MARCHAND, November, 1916.)
A soldier sustained shell-shock at the distance of a meter at
Saint-Hilaire, September 26, 1915. He lost consciousness and blood
flowed from his ears. He arrived, September 28, at the neurological
center in Bordeaux in a semistupor, knowing that he had been shocked
and had lost consciousness. He groaned, cried out, and kept stroking
his head with his right hand; lay on the right side; showed Kernig’s
sign right, ptosis, and stiff neck. Headache was increased on moving
and noises. Patient constantly asked for food, but refused to drink.
Lumbar puncture yielded a yellowish fluid, due to laked blood. October
3, headache, ptosis, left internal strabismus, temperature 38.5.
October 4, lumbar puncture, slightly blood-tinted fluid. October 5,
improvement; gap in memory for period since shock. No strabismus,
ptosis diminished, temperature normal, improvement continued. Kernig’s
sign and headache persisted. He lay doubled up on the right side, eyes
closed, right hand on pillow. Defense movements on touching the neck
or occipital region. The condition of semistupor often passed off in
the afternoon, when he could talk, write or play cards. He had always
smoked, even at the beginning of his disease. Lumbar puncture yielded
a normal fluid December 12, 1915. He was sent February 23, 1916, to a
hospital in the country, but came back May 9.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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