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
A Moroccan of the Seventh Tirailleurs was thrown to the ground by the
explosion very near him of a large calibre shell, lost consciousness,
and woke up with a slight contusion of the right side of the head. The
date of this injury is unknown. He was evacuated to the interior, but
stopped May 25, 1915, at the evacuation hospital because his pulse
in the train stood at 51. An hour later in the hospital he had a
Jacksonian epileptic attack, followed by a left-sided flaccid, brachial
monoplegia, and after a quarter of an hour a second crisis, and then
a third,--a sort of epileptic status occupying an hour. The attack
seemed to start in the left hand. After the crisis, hand and arm became
flaccid and inert.
Lumbar puncture in the crisis gave fluid under small tension in a few
absolutely limpid drops. The wound was a superficial skin wound as big
as a 25-centime piece, near the middle line, roughly corresponding with
the upper Rolandic region. It was hardly a wound--a mild abrasion not
passing the epidermis; periosteum and bone intact.
The patient was trephined and a thin layer of clot was found over the
dura mater. The clot was removed and a crucial incision was made into
the dura mater. The brain seemed a little edematous, hemorrhagic and
bruised. It soon began to beat and was tamponed.
May 26, complete brachial monoplegia without seizure.
May 27, seizure at 2 in the afternoon, starting in left arm.
The wound was going well and from this time forward no more seizures.
May 28, a cast was made for the hand.
June 4, lumbar puncture yielded a clear liquid under the pressure of
58. That evening an hour after the puncture, the brachial monoplegia
disappeared. The arm was still a little weak June 5. June 8 the man was
evacuated to the auxiliary hospital at Laversine. June 18, complete
recovery.
Fall and blow to head: Hysterical convulsions. Cure by studied neglect.
=Case 67.= (CLARKE, July, 1916.)
Clarke had seen in the war but one case of hysterical convulsions,
though this particular patient had severe hystero-epileptic fits
occurring in series. The man had never suffered from epilepsy and was
20 years of age. He received a slight wound and fell back into the
trench a distance of six feet, striking but not contusing the back of
his head.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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