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
An operation was performed June 23, 1915. The two cicatrices were
excised, and some fragments of cloth were removed. Three Jacksonian
crises followed the operation, and there was another seizure next day.
Frequent headaches followed without crises. More seizures appeared in
the night during July, and their frequency increased. Pains persisted
along the arm and in the back of the head; the musculocutaneous
perineuritis was still intense. Prolonged baths for the arm were begun
August 4, two baths of two hours each, at 40 deg. each day. Following
August 10 there was an improvement, which stopped as soon as the baths
were omitted, with diminution of the vertigo and the hyperesthesia.
This improvement continued; the baths were made to last three hours.
There were no attacks from August 21 to 26 whereupon they then returned
for two days. The pains had much diminished in the arm but persisted in
the occiput. A few night attacks occurred August 30 and 31, September 5
and 6, as well as September 19 and 20, 25 and 26, and 27.
The occipital pain had now become less; the musculocutaneous nerve
was not so large. Only a few headaches followed during the months
of October, November, and December. After November 3 the baths were
stopped and the arm was kept wrapped in a warm compress. There
was still a certain hyperesthesia, the knee-jerks had become less
exaggerated. Massage and mechanotherapeutic exercises were begun. There
were no more attacks after September 27.
_Re_ Brown-Séquard’s epilepsy, Lépine remarks that besides the case
of Mairet and Piéron, Hurst and Souques have published cases. Lépine
himself has observed two cases: one followed a nerve wound in the
foot; another, a penetrating wound of the chest. As a rule, such
Brown-Séquard epilepsies appear a number of months after trauma; as
a result of irritation in the scar. Lépine’s subjects were taken for
simulators because they had not received any _cranial_ wound. The
prognosis should be guarded, though the outcome in Case 69 appears to
have been favorable.
Epileptic episode at 24 years following bullet-wound of hand, in a
soldier who had had convulsions in childhood (sister epileptic).
Reactive epilepsy? Epilepsia tarda?
=Case 70.= (BONHOEFFER, July, 1915.)
A man in the reserve, 24, bore the stresses of the war very well
in the campaign in East Prussia until he was shot in the hand at
Deutsch-Eylau. He had always been well aside from rheumatism, and was
discharged with a good record from his military service.
Sent to the reserve hospital for his hand injury, he had, two or three
times in the night, convulsions with loss of consciousness and dilated
pupils; after which there was a thirty-six hour period of depression
with refusal of food. Thereafter this soldier had amnesia for both
the seizures and the subsequent depression. He was observed six weeks
longer in the Charité Clinic but had no more attacks, and indeed
nothing more of note either mentally or somatically.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account