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
November 27, 1914, after a night in the trenches, when two shells burst
near him, the adjutant turned up at the relief post with wild eyes
and a complaint of fatigue, and of an old wound and headaches. The
wound he had gotten in a fight which gained him his grade of adjutant.
The physician prescribed rest. He sat down by the stove, silent and
dejected, and at about four o’clock, in the presence of the medical
assistant, made preparations to go, leaving sack and saber behind, but
taking outer garments and revolver case. On the way from the farm, he
met comrades and told them he had been evacuated to his dépôt on the
colonel’s order, and walked with them, Indian file, in the midst of
falling shells, the others talking but the adjutant himself silent.
At nightfall, he said, “Good evening,” and parted from them. Of his
further course to his home, all recollection was lost by the adjutant;
in fact, he did not remember anything beyond the Palameix Farm, where
he had seen a comrade wounded in the head. He got home November 29th,
at eight in the morning. He had most of his money with him, having
traveled by train some distance without a ticket; moreover, without
asking for a ticket, and without having eaten. When the ticketman in
his home town asked him whether he was back from the war, he looked
at him vaguely and went out without replying; nor did he reply to a
newspaper man on the road home. This was the more strange as he was
ordinarily an affable person.
He had a convulsive crisis at home, after which he was exhausted and
apparently unable to move or reply. A physician said that he had had
a cerebral shock. When the police arrived, two hours later, he was
apparently delirious, saying such things as, “_The Christians want
to shoot me but I know the rules! Come, boys, stay in the trenches!_”
“_There are two more dead ones!_” etc. During the day he recovered
consciousness and was greatly disturbed at his military crime.
In point of fact, he had had, at the age of 17, analogous crises, as
was certified by Régis, who had cared for him from 1907 to 1909 for
hysteria with sudden somnambulistic attacks and amnesia.
While in prison after his arrest, he also had hysterical crises with
agitation, flushed face, hard attempts to vomit, respiratory disorder
due to interference in the throat (globus hystericus), and delirious
phenomena (“Germans had followed him home”).
After his birth his mother had had two miscarriages and a stillborn
child. The adjutant was declared irresponsible and acquitted. This is
apparently an instance of hysteria without stigmata.
Hysterical Adventist.
=Case 172.= (DE LA MOTTE, August, 1915.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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