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
A soldier entering hospital for typhoid fever, October 2, 1914, was
discharged to another hospital and again, November 10, to a hospital
for nervous disease. The typhoid was serious and complicated by
delirium. After defervescence, the patient was weak and could not stand
or walk, especially on account of pains and weakness in the left leg.
Sometimes he had had pains in the sacrum and left hip. He complained
of tinnitus, deafness, dizziness, headache. He said he had fallen from
a cart, had been sick for three months, since which time he had been
under medical treatment for his present condition. He had, he said,
been given a small pension.
The gait disorder sometimes amounted to a real astasia-abasia. The
left leg became stiff and was dragged behind. There was a paresis
demonstrable in dorsal decubitus, of the left side, especially of the
leg, without atrophy. There was a hypesthesia of the whole left side
of the body, with the exception of the head. Hyperesthesia of the left
leg, hip and upper sacrum. The left corneal reflex was diminished.
Moody, hypochondriacal, lachrymose. The general attitude of the patient
was affected and theatrical. Paradoxical innervations were frequently
found on test. There was no neurological disorder except for the
absence of the right Achilles jerk.
The absence of this Achilles jerk may be regarded as a residuum of the
previous accident. The localization of the pains points to a neurotic
lumbosacral plexus disorder on the left side. Superimposed upon this
picture are the hysterical phenomena. The typhoid fever and its
attendant neuritis are therefore to be interpreted as the liberating
factor for a severe hysteria in a subject already disposed to such
symptoms through previous accident.
Dementia praecox versus post-typhoidal encephalitis.
=Case 124.= (NORDMAN, June, 1916.)
A butcher, 29 (aunt insane, sister melancholy, one child stillborn,
deformed), had had several days convulsions at eight; went through
military service without incident; was at the Marne and was evacuated
October 19, 1914, with typhoid fever,--a severe fever with a delirium
prolonged into the last weeks. Three months convalescent leave was
given, passed at Paris with the man’s aunt, but he had become strange.
One day he wanted to strangle neighbors of German origin; another day
departed for Dunkirk and then returned, having lost all his documents.
February, 1915, he went back to the front, did strange things and was
soon evacuated to Tarascon. In April he went back to his dépôt; May 18,
to the hospital at Rennes for erythema. June 15, he was given 15 days
in prison for setting off a cannon too quickly and then running off
through the fields. August 11, he was interned at Rennes for stealing
a priest’s cap. September 12, two months convalescence. December 10,
headaches. Back to Rennes January 14, February 18, Val-de-Grâce, then
Maison Blanche.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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