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
On reaching home, while waiting for a train, the officer suddenly
collapsed and became unconscious. For months thereafter, he was the
subject of a severe neurasthenia; “the whole of his trouble seemed
to be due to the dread, lest on his return to the front, the added
responsibilities which would fall upon his shoulders might be too
much for him.” He thought his intelligence had been numbed by his
experience. He thought his memory was unreliable, and that he could
understand neither complex orders nor even the newspapers.
As to the reason for his maintenance of composure at the front, this
may be laid to the excitement, the officer’s sense of responsibility,
and the example he felt he should set his men. This kind of case
“demands a great deal of patient and sympathetic attention before the
real cause is elicited, and then months of daily reëducation to build
up anew the man’s confidence in himself.”
Bullet wound of neck: Late sympathetic nerve effect.
=Case 285.= (TUBBY, January, 1915.)
A Belgian was wounded, October 21, 1914, at Dixmude. The bullet
wound was just below the right mastoid process. He was admitted to
the London General Hospital, October 29. He said that the bullet had
passed into the tonsil, lodging there, but that on the third day, while
vomiting, he brought up the tonsil with the bullet in it. There was in
fact a large ragged wound at the site of the right tonsil. He could
swallow fluids only, but articulated clearly. There was a question
of injury to the following nerves: facial, glossopharyngeal, vagus,
hypoglossal, spinal accessory, and sympathetic. None of these nerves,
however, appeared actually to have been injured. The difficulty in
swallowing was due probably to the faucial wound, and it is hard to
see how the pharynx could have been involved on account of the perfect
articulation. November 3 the right sympathetic nerve was slightly
affected; the right pupil was smaller than the left although it reacted
to light. November 12 the patient left the hospital and nothing
further is known of his history. Thus there was a late effect upon the
sympathetic nerve thirteen days after the wound.
_Re_ peripheral nerve disorders, see remarks under Case 252 (Tubby).
Fall from horse under shell fire: Crural monoplegia, hysterical.
Reminiscence? Autosuggestion?
=Case 286.= (FORSYTH, December, 1915.)
A patient of Forsyth had been exercising a high-spirited horse.
Artillery fire close by made the horse leap sidewise, and the rider
fell, his back striking the ground. He seemed to be curiously shaken
out of proportion to the gravity of the fall. In a day or so, he lost
the use of one leg.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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