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
As to these cases of camptocormia, some authors regard them as due to
anatomical changes in the vertebral column itself, or in the ligaments
and muscles, and accordingly regard the condition as a form of
spondylitis, syndesmitis, or psoitis. This view is held by Sicard, who
bases the idea upon the local pains and the results of cerebrospinal
fluid examination. According to Roussy and Lhermitte, hyperalbuminosis
of the fluid is extremely rare, and one case of their own _with_
hyperalbuminosis was nevertheless cured with great rapidity. Roussy and
Lhermitte even inquire whether the fluid albumin may not be due in some
way to an interference with venous and lymphatic circulation.
In some cases, this condition may be at first a response to pain,
a pseudospondylitis dolorosa, such as may be sometimes observed in
hospitals near the front. Later, however, the suffering in camptocormia
is due more to the abnormal position of the trunk, with strain upon
vertebral ligaments, than to the persistence of any original pain.
Moreover, these patients recover almost immediately from their pains
when the contraction is relieved.
In differential diagnosis, one has to consider, according to Roussy
and Lhermitte, Pott’s disease, traumatic spondylitis, as well
as Bechterew’s vertebral ankylosis, Pierre Marie’s rhizomelic
spondylosis, Kocher’s intervertebral disc contusions, and Schuster’s
myogenic ankylosis of the vertebral column; but in Pott’s disease, the
fixed pain points, rigidity of column, fluid examination, and signs
of myelitis, should suffice for the differential diagnosis. Traumatic
spondylitis follows the contusion after months and after a phase of
neuralgia. Ankyloses do not so much concern the trunk as the vertebral
column itself; disc contusion produces disorders in standing and gait
as well as pains and edema. Schuster’s disease shows paresis, hyper
reflexia, and amyotrophy not shown in camptocormia.
Shell explosion; partial burial; forcible flexion of spine. Paraplegia,
cured by suggestion. Then camptocormia, also cured.
=Case 245.= (JOLTRAIN, March, 1917.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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