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
Upon hospital observation, he was found fatigued, given to terrible
dreams, tremulous in the fingers, with skin reflexes a little
excessive, and the Moebius phenomenon. The thyroid was somewhat
swollen. The pulse stood at 80. The Mannkopf sign was well marked, as
well as that of Thomayer (80-120), and Erben (120-87). The oculocardiac
reflex was prominent.
Psychopathic episodes.
=Case 187.= (PELLACANI, April, 1917.)
A Neapolitan, 26 (neuropathic stock: mother epileptic, brother
psychopathic; patient had previous criminal record; married and then
appeared to behave himself for several years; had always been excitable
and of violent temper), after but one severe day in the trenches, woke
and found his night clothes soaked in urine. Another time, his comrade
had awakened him because he was gnashing his teeth in his sleep. Again,
his grief became very violent at learning of his wife’s infidelity, and
during the night he bit his finger. He thereafter suffered from severe
headaches, dizziness and vertigo though without falling. He was granted
a furlough, but the condition was aggravated on account of his wife’s
abandonment of him, and one day, finding her with her lover, he threw
himself at them, wounding her severely in the face: he did not remember
this impulse later. Many hours later, on awakening in prison with his
wounded hand, he recalled the entire episode. He showed a confused and
excited condition, which, however, quickly diminished. He became lucid
and tranquil, though easily aroused. He cried at the thought of his
daughter, whom he wanted to save. Insomnia, instability of reaction,
habitual migraine, and dizziness. Tremors of the fingers and of the
eyelids. Exaggerated reflexes. Very striking cutaneous analgesia.
Maniacal and hysterical delinquent.
=Case 188.= (BUSCAINO AND COPPOLA, January, 1916.)
An Italian soldier, 25, a foundling, was always off and on in a
military prison. At a tavern one night the man unsheathed his sword and
threw three bottles at the host. Bystanders overpowered him and carried
him to the local police station. Handcuffs were put on to stop the
mania. His pupils were dilated and he was sweating profusely. Alcohol
could absolutely be excluded from the history of this incident.
Observed in clinic, the patient was rather silent, but on the whole
normal and without delusions or hallucinations. It seems that he had
committed a number of crimes in the army that were always excused on
account of his mental state. He had been strongly alcoholic, although
not at the time of the incident mentioned. He was covered with
tattooings of an obscene and violent nature.
He showed pharyngeal and conjunctival anesthesia and concentric
limitation of the visual fields of unusual degree, and a remarkable
hypalgesia. The knee-jerks were lively. The man was, in point of fact,
sent back to military service, with, however, the suggestion of reform
school.
Psychopathic delinquent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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