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
According to the patient, it seems that about three years before, he
had been buried four feet deep in a brick yard, beneath a heap of
clay. He had felt it most in the right leg, but the thigh had been
merely stiff and sore, and not numb. The patient admitted that the
present accident immediately reminded him of his previous experience.
There were no tremors or sensory disorders in the face, arms, chest,
back, or abdomen. There was diminished sensibility to cotton wool of
the left buttock (across which a plank had fallen), and there was a
degree of hypalgesia of the buttock. The right thigh showed a degree
of thermanalgesia and slight loss of vibratory sense. The corneal
and conjunctival reflexes were diminished, and the knee-jerk was
unobtainable on the right side. Three days later, there was a marked
improvement with almost complete return to normal, whereupon the
patient was sent to a convalescent camp.
Emotional subject, ALWAYS WEAK IN LEGS; shell explosion; wound of back:
PARAPARESIS.
=Case 288.= (DEJERINE, February, 1915.)
A Lieutenant, 25, was wounded at Arras about 10 a.m. October 20, 1914,
just as he was leaning on another officer’s shoulder looking at a card
in a chateau room. A shell burst in the court yard. A fragment came in
the window, struck him in the back and pushed him forward, whereupon
he felt pain in the back and a severe dyspnea, due to the gas from the
shell. He lost consciousness several times and the dyspnea lasted for
about two hours. When he was picked up he could not walk.
He was carried on a stretcher to the ambulance at Avin-le-Compte.
During the fortnight there, he was also several times dyspneic.
Strength left his legs and he could only get about on crutches. There
was now a suppurating wound in the interscapular region where he had
been struck by the shell fragment. Evacuated to Paris, he was operated
upon on account of a tremendous abscess in the back, and the shell
fragment and some bits of cloth were removed. The wound healed; but
vague pains in the left thorax remained, especially when the man walked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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