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
According to Consiglio, we are dealing with an epileptic degenerate,
addicted to alcohol, lying, and immorality. The question concerning
responsibility was settled in the affirmative. Of course, it might be
thought that the case was one of pathological intoxication, in which
case, the man might be regarded as only semi-responsible. However,
the phenomena of simulation, not merely in the observation hospital
but also in the period of apparent depression and strange conduct
immediately following his arrest for desertion, led to the decision
that the man, despite his nervous abnormality, was responsible for his
act. He was condemned to 20 years in prison.
_Re_ dementia praecox, Buscaino and Coppola found a number of cases
of dementia praecox amongst soldiers admitted to hospital during the
period of mobilization; cases amongst men who had not yet been at the
front. These mobilization cases, in fact, were as a rule either cases
of dementia praecox, cases of a psychopathic constitution, or cases of
alcoholism.
A disciplinary case: Schizophrenia, alcoholism.
=Case 151.= (KASTAN, January, 1916.)
In October, 1914, a German soldier returned to his barracks late from
a drinking bout. He insolently called for order, brandishing his
arms, and when the captain rebuked him, he kept a cigar in his mouth.
Examined in hospital (Allenberg), he was very reticent at first but
wrote his name up over the bed with the additional word “_Dead_.” He
answered, “I don’t know” to most questions. Although it was December,
he said the season was summer. He was to be shot for disrespect, he
said, but showed more disrespect at every remonstrance. “What is your
regiment?” “I am no soldier at all, you know. I have already been
discharged as unfit for service.” “Have you been in prison?” “I don’t
know. My father often thrashed me.” Then suddenly, after a moment, “I
was in prison five, seven, and two years, and my father was in prison
four, six, and three years.” He said that he had drunk ether and urged
the physician to try it, as one saw all sorts of beautiful pictures and
figures and heard music.
Upon investigation, it was found that the man had been in a provincial
sanatorium for some form of degenerative mental disease with
excitement. He, at this time, had given a number of fantastic stories
concerning his wanderings. For example, he said he had come from
Australia, where he had eaten snipes and crows; that he was on his way
home and would get there in half an hour (real distance 10 hours). Or
again, he would roll his eyes, assume a false name and say that he
had come from Morocco, or that he was the emperor and would not play
soldier. When asked to repeat digits, he habitually omitted the last
digit. He had been a poor scholar, and of a tricky and treacherous
character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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