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 naval officer, 22, transferred from sea service, went into Belgium,
November, 1914, in a Fusilleur brigade of marines and there greatly
distinguished himself, growing very weary and enervated, however,
about the middle of April, 1915. His attitude to the men altered:
he sometimes struck them; gently, though, according to his account.
They must do in ten seconds what they really could not do under ten
minutes. The officer, in fact, had lost all notion of time. He went
about agitatedly, contradicted his superior officers and was troubled
because, as he said, they often were men of inexperience as compared to
himself. He grew irritated, too, because there were Free Masons in the
army and when he was sent to the asylum in July, 1915, said it was the
doing of the Free Masons. He did not seem to have any hallucinations.
His ideas and sentiments were very labile, and a bit confused, and not
all his interpretations dealt with Free Masons and occultism. August
5, however, the phase of calmness was again followed by agitation;
he broke things and laughed explosively. August 10, another attack
occurred, with destructiveness. During the next few days there were
alternate phases of depression and excitation. He was negativistic,
resistive and struck attendants.
_Re_ war stress and psychoses, Morselli finds the acute cases on
psychopathic soil. First in the list, he places the neurasthenias and
psychasthenias, and second, the hysterias, two groups which, more than
the remainder, may be said to constitute the so-called Shell-shock
group. Third, he found depressions ranging over into a delusional
state with suicidal ideas; fourth, a species of stupor, occasionally
catatonic, recalling dementia praecox; fifth, transient hallucinatory
states; sixth, confusions (Meynert’s amentia?); last, manias.
The above case of Dumesnil appears to be a pure case of
manic-depressive psychosis developing on the war basis, but perhaps
merely comes from a latent cyclothymia.
Predisposition; war stress: Melancholia.
=Case 168.= (DUMESNIL, 1915-6.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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