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
heat pads--certainly relieved the pain, and after the first
two or three visits to you I got immense relief. I never
looked back after this, and, although the progress was slow, I
gradually lost all pain and was able to get sleep at night. The
nervous jumps slowly disappeared and my leg became gradually
normal except for contraction of the tendons. I was unable to
straighten my ankle or knee, and it was thought at one time
that my tendo Achillis would have to be severed. Gradually
the knee straightened and I was able to get my heel to the
ground. I was for some time on crutches, and was able to leave
the hospital on February 5, 1916, walking with sticks.… I am
now able to walk comfortably, but am unable to flex the ankle
more than at right angle to my leg. The circulation is not
very good, and I feel anything tight round my calf. I am still
getting Boards, and have not been passed fit for overseas yet.”
VI. SOMATOPSYCHOSES
(THE SYMPTOMATIC, NON-NERVOUS, GROUP)
Dysentery: Psychosis.
=Case 122.= (LOEWY, November, 1915.)
Out of a large number of dysentery patients, many of whom had very
serious symptoms, but one of Loewy’s patients became psychotic.
Loewy in fact had discharged this one as normal, and he had been put
on the wagon train (no opium or alcohol) to go to a sanatorium. As
the fighting shifted, the sanatorium site changed and could not be
reached with the wagon. Finally, the wagon train met the battalion
once more and Loewy was told that the man was “dying.” At this time he
was afebrile, without collapse symptoms, with a strong and normally
frequent pulse, and with few signs of exhaustion. Yet the guard had
thought that he looked moribund. Both upper eyelids were drawn rigidly
up but conveyed a different impression from that in maniacal or
anxious conditions. The expression was that of staring astonishment,
helplessness, and apathetic lack of orientation. The patient recognized
Loewy, spoke to him as “Herr Doctor,” said he was doing quite well;
he was found to be well oriented. There was no fabricating tendency
even as to the number of stools (although Loewy had noted such in
bad dysenteries of the _Shiga-Kruse_ type). He was apparently hard
of hearing, as if at the beginning of a typhoid fever. He showed a
retardation in his intake of ideas, and his voice in answering sounded
absent-minded. There was an expression of absent-mindedness, and the
patient seemed markedly unconcerned about his health, the direction of
the journey, the terrible rain, etc. These phenomena are attributed by
Loewy to attention disorder.
The patient had been out of reach of fire for days. Loewy reports the
case as one of beginning amentia or as an exhausted state resembling a
Korsakow condition, recalling one of emotional hyperesthetic weakness
(Bonhoeffer).
Typhoid fever: Hysteria.
=Case 123.= (STERZ, December, 1914.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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