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
April 20, 1915, the patient was found to be a robust, somewhat
microencephalic slowly cerebrating subject. Total flaccid paralysis
of legs; right knee-jerk slightly exaggerated; no plantar response of
any sort was obtainable. Right leg entirely anesthetic; left leg and
both arms showed a diminution of sensibility; suggestion of glove and
stocking anesthesia; trophic changes absent. The scar of the healed
bullet-wound lay over the trunk of the left sciatic nerve.
It seems that the man’s companion had both his legs blown off at
the time the shell burst. It is questionable whether the paraplegic
patient actually saw the legs blown off, or merely heard about the
accident. Another psychic feature lay in the fact that the patient had
a paralyzed sister--a possible financial burden.
April 30, nitrous acid anesthesia. During the temporary rigidity, the
legs were found to stiffen slightly; the legs were flexed. Upon the
return of consciousness, the patient was told that the legs had moved
during anesthesia, and was asked to place them in a more convenient
position. The thighs moved slightly, and throughout the day movements
were encouraged against resistance.
The next day he was gradually raised to the vertical position and
supported upright. But at this stage he had become mentally resistant
and resentful. During the day the upright position was at intervals
resumed, and the patient was made to walk between two attendants. The
next day he walked alone and his mental resistance had broken down.
There was no longer any evidence of exhaustion and effort in the
movements, and the patient began to take pleasure in his recovery.
Improvement was progressive. A pronounced hysterical element persisted,
encouraged by the perpetual attentions of visitors. When discharged,
there was a slight hemi-anesthesia throughout the right side, and a
doubtful patch of anesthesia on the dorsum of the foot, sole, and
plantar surface of the heel.
Shell-shock; burial; flexion of spine: Paraplegia.
=Case 237.= (ELLIOT, December, 1914.)
A reservist, 34, formerly army instructor in gymnastics, a member of
the 1st Battalion King’s Royal Rifles, was subject to injury from
the bursting of a “Black Maria” on his trench. He was sitting with
bent back in his shelter, with legs fully extended. He was in a small
dug-out, a recess excavated under the earth backward from a narrow
trench and not timbered. The “Black Maria” burst and covered him up
to the chin in a heavy clay soil. After building up the breach twenty
minutes later, his comrades dug him out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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