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
Chloroformed, October 22, 1915: There was no sharply defined
asymmetry of the tendon reflexes. The left Achilles reflex appeared a
little weaker. In the phase of muscular resolution, the contracture
disappeared entirely, but it reappeared a little after the return of
the tendon reflexes. The reappearance of the _contracture preceded_ the
reappearance of _consciousness_ from twenty to twenty-five minutes.
Post-typhoidal reflex or physiopathic disorder of right leg. Elective
exaggeration under chloroform.
=Case 276.= (BABINSKI AND FROMENT, 1917.)
A typhoid patient, October 20, 1914, showed phlebitis and abscess of
the right buttock with contracture of pelvic trochanteric muscles. He
was sent to the Pitié on medicolegal grounds.
September 22 there was found a slight laxity of the patella tendon, as
well marked on the left side as on the right. The right side was more
cyanotic, due to the inactivity of the limb. There was no edema. Tendon
and skin reflexes were normal. The lack of power was diagnosticated as
purely functional, and the report was rendered that the soldier could
begin to walk as soon as he desired. The two knee-jerks were noted to
be stronger and polykinetic, and the right knee-jerk appeared a little
stronger.
The patient was chloroformed, October 25, 1915. Almost immediately,
the knee-jerks, Achilles jerks, plantar, and cremasteric reflexes
disappeared. During the first period of anesthesia, there was no
accentuation of the reflexes, but at the beginning of recovery the
anticipated reappearance of the _right_ knee-jerk was observed. This
knee-jerk was already sharply defined at a moment when the left
knee-jerk was still abolished. In a later phase of recovery, the
right knee-jerk was very markedly exaggerated and a patellar clonus
was demonstrable on the right side. Even percussion of the _left_
patellar tendon brought about a contraction of the _right_ adductors.
There was a true clonic and tonic spasm of these muscles. On the other
hand, percussion of the right patellar tendon was able to provoke no
contraction of either right or left adductors. Nor was there at any
time any ankle clonus.
Hysterical lameness (bullet wound of calf) cured, but the associated
“reflex” disorder (in the sense of Babinski and Froment) NOT cured.
=Case 277.= (VINCENT, April, 1916.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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