On admission to this hospital the patient was in poor physical health
and very anæmic. He was quite slender in stature and somewhat
effeminate in manners and speech. He walked with a very marked limp of
the right leg, stating that he had been afflicted in this manner ever
since his first attack of mental trouble at the age of nineteen.
Patellar reflexes were markedly exaggerated on both sides, the left
more so than the right, and ankle clonus was present on the left side.
Babinski phenomenon was absent. While the reflexes were being tested
he volunteered the information that his left patellar reflex was very
much stronger than the right. He was a very glib talker and spoke
fluently in five foreign languages. He gave his name as E. J. B.,
Count de C., the son of the chamberlain to the Austrian Emperor and of
a famous Austrian countess. In the official papers which accompanied
him to the hospital the above name was followed by several aliases. He
talked in an affected, whining manner, constantly complained of
various bodily ailments, and showed a marked tendency to
hypochondriasis. He spoke of himself as a poor, down-trodden, and
persecuted unfortunate who is being constantly misunderstood. The
whole "white slavery" episode for which he is unjustly made to suffer
ten years' imprisonment was a trumped-up affair on the part of the
sheriff, who was bound to make a case out of it. He married the girl
with the best of intentions, and when arrested was with her on the way
to the Atlantic coast, preparatory to sailing for Paris, where he
intended to give her a splendid time. She testified against him at the
trial because she was scared into it by the officials, and, being
naturally of a weak nervous organization, she gave in. He was certain
he was going to die if he had to serve out his sentence, because
prison life is so different from the life he has led in the past. He
is entirely too refined to be able to stand the rough life of
imprisonment. Referred the examiner to the Austrian Embassy, which
could readily establish his noble descent and get him out of this
terrible predicament. When, later in his sojourn here, he was
interviewed by several gentlemen from the Austrian Embassy he
maintained the same attitude of wronged innocence, notwithstanding the
fact that these gentlemen confronted him with an undoubtedly genuine
photograph of himself, obtained from the Austrian police. It seems
that he was quite a famous character in Austria, and had served a
sentence there under a different name for a similar offense (white
slavery). Soon after his arrival at the Government Hospital for the
Insane he began to scheme for his escape, and on one occasion
attempted to saw the guards in his room with an improvised saw. He
likewise began to associate freely with the more dangerous element of
the criminal department of this hospital, quite likely with a view
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