engaged in, proved a failure and was characterized by repeated
desertions. He commenced using alcoholics at a very early age and has
indulged excessively all his lifetime. He has had several gonorrhœal
infections, and has an active luetic infection at the present time.
On May 5, 1908, he was sentenced to a six years' term of
imprisonment. Soon after it became necessary to perform an operation
for appendicitis, and upon recovering he began to complain of having
been cut open and of having had poison put inside of him. The U. S.
Government sent men down to the prison who were threatening to kill
him. He saw detectives from Washington whom he recognized. He was very
apprehensive and refused to submit himself to an examination, and made
homicidal attacks upon the officers. On March 8, 1909, he was admitted
to this institution. His conduct here was characterized throughout his
entire stay by the same attributes of character which were at play
throughout his entire antisocial existence. He was at all times very
emotional. He was very sensitive, becoming offended on the least
provocation, and when laboring under some imaginary grievance his
antagonism and vindictiveness knew no bounds. He was constantly
plotting and scheming some means of inciting a revolt among the other
inmates and took every opportunity to put himself forth as the
champion of the other patients. He was very egotistical and vain and
showed a marked tendency to interpret most trivial occurrences in his
environment as having some reference to him. He was always ready to
endow every incident with a personal note of prejudice. He showed
throughout marked fluctuations of mood. One never knew what sort of a
reception one would meet. He was a pathological liar, was keenly alert
to everything that transpired about him and was always ready to
utilize every incident to his own advantage. He was depraved to a very
marked degree morally. He gave his past history without the least sign
of regret and when questioned concerning the reason of his criminal
life, he objected strenuously to being called a criminal, insisting
that what he did was right. At times he impressed one by his mode of
reaction to various daily occurrences as being as naïve as a child
and suggestible to a very marked degree. He frequently threatened to
commit suicide if refused some of his impossible requests and showed a
marked tendency to hypochondriasis and exaggeration of actual ills. On
this basis he developed various persecutory ideas, exclusively against
those who had anything to do with his care and safe-keeping. The
warden at the jail before he came here tried to poison him and took
the opportunity of accomplishing this while he (the patient) was
undergoing an operation. The Government sent Secret Service men down
to watch him and persecute him. Here the physicians are doing the same
thing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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