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
_Re_ epilepsy and syphilis, Bonhoeffer states that he has repeatedly
seen syphilis giving no other symptoms than epilepsy develop in
the campaign. At the same time, Bonhoeffer does not find that the
incubation period in paresis can be shortened by war factors; at all
events, by the exhaustion factor in war (see Case 25). It might be
questioned whether the above case (54) was not psychogenic; that is,
whether the syphilis did not act in combination with being sent to
Berlin on service as a psychic factor. However, this epilepsy on the
whole seemed not psychogenic.
Syphilis in a psychopathic subject. Convulsions 5 days after Dixmude.
=Case 55.= (BONHOEFFER, July, 1915.)
A soldier in the reserves, 23, was, subsequently to his being brought
to hospital, described by his wife as a rather over-sensitive fellow,
who could hardly look at blood and was meticulous about the household.
He had always been subject to headaches, especially after hard work.
However, he had passed through his military training well in 1910, not
even having been _bestraft_.
He began service in October and fought at Dixmude on the 19th. On
the 24th in the trench and while being carried back, he had several
spells of pallor, falling stiff, and then having convulsions. Brought
finally to the Charité in Berlin, he had more spells of sudden pallor,
collapse with brief convulsions, tossings in bed, as well as absences,
post-convulsive headaches, and mild bad humor.
There were numerous attacks several days apart in the first seven
weeks. The patient was not of an “epileptic” disposition, though
readily dissatisfied and headachey.
The serum W. R. was positive. Treatment by mercurial inunctions. No
further convulsions. Prognosis doubtful.
_Re_ epilepsy and the war, during the first six months Bonhoeffer
observed 33 cases in the Charité Clinic in Berlin. Twenty of these 33
cases, unlike Case 55, had attacks before the war, although ten of
these had become epileptic rather late, namely, after the period of
active military service, at ages from 22 to 27. The development of
epilepsy like Case 55’s is not without frequent precedent.
Bonhoeffer states that aside from epilepsy directly due to brain
injury by shells, there has been no certain case in which we have the
right to regard the war itself as the total cause of the epilepsy.
Some, like Case 55, are of syphilitic origin. No subject with a severe
long-standing epilepsy has been able to get into the field, according
to Bonhoeffer; when they do, they prove constitutional subjects.
An epileptic imbecile, court-martialed.
=Case 56.= (LAUTIER, 1916.)
A Belgian soldier was condemned by court-martial February 27, 1915, to
five years imprisonment for leaving his post in the presence of the
enemy. It seems that he was mounting guard with two of his comrades and
all three left to eat as no food had been brought to them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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