Examination of the patient soon after admission revealed a
well-organized and very extensive delusional system, which, according
to his story, apparently had its inception during the Civil War. It
seems that he had caused the apprehension and execution of a
Confederate spy, and ever since then, he states, the relatives and
friends of this man have been persecuting him. In 1889 he was granted
a pension of $25 per month, but he did not think that this was a fair
deal inasmuch as he was not a nurse, but a physician, and should
receive at least a hundred dollars per month. He states that he came
originally to Washington to have this matter straightened out, but on
account of his enemies was unsuccessful. His worst persecutions he
believed to have been instigated by the A. E. Company because he had
judgment against this Company for about $50,000. He stated that this
was obtained in a damage suit which he brought against this Company
because they wanted to charge him expressage of something like 40¢ on
a prepaid package. Following this damage suit, the Express Company's
agents, especially members of the R. family, have been spying on him
and persecuting him; he finally sued a member of this R. family and
obtained judgment against him in the Circuit Court of Virginia for
$9,000. When asked to explain how he figures out these exact amounts
of damage, he is ready with a thousand plausible reasons why the
amounts were as he gives them. He was finally charged with perjury,
found guilty, and while awaiting sentence was adjudged by a jury to be
of unsound mind and sent to the Government Hospital for the Insane.
He believes that members of this R. family were behind this because
they were afraid that the patient would collect on his judgments,
which by this time, amounted to something like $20,000, and which, as
he put it, "were good, valid and subsisting, not reversed or otherwise
vacated."
During his sojourn in the Government Hospital for the Insane, he was
always very suspicious and seclusive, keeping to his room practically
all the time and aloof from the other patients in the ward. He adhered
very tenaciously to his delusional system and believed himself fully
justified in all his litigious pursuits. With all this he was clear
and coherent in conversation, his memory was quite well-preserved, and
he had no difficulty in keeping himself fully informed on current
events. Aside from the very evident caution and very profound
suspicious attitude which he manifested during a conversation, he made
no abnormal impression.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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