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
Babinski notes that this association of conditions was remarkable
in that it demonstrated that hysteria and simulation should not be
confounded with one another. To be sure, it is difficult to tell
simulation from suggested phenomena, for there are no objective
characters that demarcate the two. Babinski had himself said that
hysteria was a demi-simulation; but a demi-simulation is not a
simulation. The patient was in fact, sincere enough in his belief that
he could not move his leg. To obviate this paralysis, he had in fact
leaned so conscientiously upon his crutch that an organic paralysis
had resulted. In fact the radial palsy had only been discovered
incidentally, and the paradox appeared that a purely imaginary trouble
occupied in the patient’s mind for a long time a much more important
place than the genuine organic trouble which accompanied it.
Bombardment; war strain; gassing?; collapse; arthritis: Hysterical
MONOPLEGIA and ANESTHESIA of leg, interpreted as a “PROTECTIVE”
reaction. Later, monoplegia and anesthesia of arm.
=Case 232.= (MACCURDY, July, 1917.)
A corporal described as normal (“except for some shyness with the
opposite sex”) adapted himself well to training and went to France
in May, 1915, where he was at once thrown into 18 days of almost
continuous bombardment. After some initial fright, he settled down
to work well enough, but, when the weather got bad in September,
1915, grew tired of the situation. Bad dreams began (falling into a
deep hole; being shelled). He thought of suicide, wanted a shell to
incapacitate or kill him, began to have pains in the head, arms and
legs, and was already groggy when a gas attack came. Whether he got a
whiff of the gas or not, he at any rate felt giddy, got a swallow of
water, and when the gas passed got out of his dugout in the open air.
He was fatigued and much relieved when the company was ordered back.
Now, however, he got shaky and fell in a collapse on a pile of straw,
without, however, losing consciousness.
Apparently he had an attack of acute articular rheumatism. There was
a sore throat and a pain in the head, radiating to left shoulder and
to finger tips, with pain also in legs. The pain was worse in the
right leg on moving the knee-joint. These pains lasted for a month in
hospital. The leg had been like a log since the collapse on the pile
of straw. Even after the pains left him a month later, the right leg
was paralyzed and anesthetic. He walked with a crutch and developed a
crutch palsy. After a month a hysterical paralysis of the right arm,
with superficial anesthesia, supervened. During a period of eight
months thereafter improvement was steady under reëducative measures.
According to MacCurdy’s analysis, the acute arthritis led to paralysis
as a protective reaction. The paralyses are disabilities that would
ensure absence from the front.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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