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
But he seemed to show a decided lack of autocritique. About boxing
the Sister’s ear on her saying “Please go out,”--his idea was that he
could not let a thing like that happen to him,--a German soldier and
a patient! Moreover, “It should not be thought that perhaps I had a
love affair with her! There was a cynicism about her.” The Sister had
a strong sex impulse, he could see that by her nose: she was, so to
speak, “hypochondriacal.” Both in speech and writing he used stilted
phrases. The ego at last swelled to the point of his saying that he was
an inhabitant of the World and hated Prussia and Prussian _Junkertum_.
Then came unmotivated states of excitement, with pressure of speech
and motion, and eventually negativism. Accordingly, the diagnosis
hebephrenia finally replaced that of psychopathic constitution.
Dementia praecox, arrested as spy.
=Case 148.= (KASTAN, January, 1916.)
A German private, called to the colors, was supposed to take his
civilian clothes to the post office along with his comrades on March
21, 1915. He did not get his package ready in time and was ordered to
go with another troop. At an opportune moment, he left the barracks
with the package of clothing. When later arrested, he said that he had
gone by railroad to Dirschau; then he had visited Berlin. After this,
he had walked to Bromberg, Schneidemühl, and Landsberg.
At last he had ridden back to Küstrin. At Küstrin some children told
a railway official that the man was making drawings. There was a
petroleum tank near by. Accordingly, he was arrested as a possible spy.
He claimed that he was not a soldier.
In the clinic, he looked dull and smiled a good deal. It seems that,
before being called to the colors, he had been very angry with his
wife and had even threatened her. He now explained this anger as his
wife’s fault. She had attacked him, he said. He said that he sometimes
had attacks of weakness, which used to last two days at a time, but
they had recently lasted for a shorter time. He said that his thoughts
always wanted to be somewhere else. In fact, he had not performed
military duty. His uniform had been gotten for him, but he had had no
further orders. Sometimes in a fever or dream his head seemed to be as
big as a room, as if there were no space for it. There was an itching
in his legs, he said, which often fell asleep so he could not stand on
them. He had had syphilis seven years before, after which he had been
hoarse, forgetful, and anxious.
Examination showed perceptive power and knowledge to be good. He played
the violin, but always the same tunes. He said that he had not worked
in Berlin during the winter of 1914. He spoke as if he had been in
another sanitarium, where he did nothing but dream by himself, taking
no interest in things, and lying indifferently, with a blanket over
him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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