A. PSYCHOSES INCIDENTAL IN THE WAR

The data from all the belligerent countries, collected in this book, go far to prove that, whatever at last you elect to term Shell-shock, you must pause to consider whether your putative case is not actually:

A matter of spirochetes?

The response of a subnormal soldier?

An equivalent of epilepsy?

An alcoholic situation?

A result of neurones actually hors de combat?

A state of bodily weakness (perhaps of faiblesse irritable)?

A bit of dementia praecox?

One of the ups and downs of the emotional (affective, cyclothymic) psychoses?

An odd psychopathic reaction in which the response is abnormal not so much by reason of excessive stimulus as by reason of defective power of response?

On a simpler basis, is not our Shell-shocker just a banal example of hysteria, neurasthenia, psychasthenia; and is not this psychoneurotic more peculiar in his capacity to be shocked than are the conditions that purvey the shocks?

Put more concretely in the terms of available tests and criteria, open to the psychiatrist, does not every putative Shell-shock soldier deserve at some stage a blood test for syphilis? Should we not be reasonably sure we are not facing a man inadequate to start with, so far as mental tests avail? Should we not verify (even at considerable expense of time and money by so-called “social service” methods) the facts of epilepsy and epileptic taint? Of alcoholism? And so on? There can be no two answers to these questions.

Upon the following page is a practical grouping of mental diseases, devised in the first place, not for war psychoses, but for the initial sifting of psychopathic hospital cases. Now the psychopathic hospital group of cases constitutes in peace practice the closest analogue of the mental cases met in active military practice, because the “incipient, acute, and curable”[1] cases, for which psychopathic hospitals are built and which flock to or are sent to the wards and outdoor departments of such hospitals, are precisely the cases that early come forward in active military practice. They are precisely the cases in which that pathological event—whatever it is—we know as Shell-shock may be expected to develop. It is precisely the “incipient, acute, and curable” instances of mental disease which we hope to exclude from our American army by cis-Atlantic winnowing-out at the hands of neuropsychiatric experts—the best preventive we hope both of Shell-shock and of other worse mental conditions, if such there be. Military mental practice plainly deals, not so much with frank and committable insanity, as with mental diseases of a medically milder but a militarily far more insidious nature.

A further inspection of this grouping of mental diseases shows not only that it contains many conditions not usually termed “insanity” (such as, e.g., feeblemindedness, epilepsy, alcoholism, sundry somatic diseases, psychoneuroses), but that these conditions are presented for practical purposes in a certain seemingly arbitrary order. Without attempting to justify this selection of scope (not too wide for modern psychiatry, most would readily acknowledge), I shall draw out a little further what I consider to be the virtues of the order selected. In the first place, all will concede, some order of consideration of collected data is a prime necessity to the tyro. Without an order of consideration the diagnostic tyro is but too apt to find in the best textbooks of psychiatry (even more easily the better the textbook) all he needs to prove that the case in hand is—almost anything he selects to make his case conform to! And how much more dangerous this debating-society method of diagnosis (by choice of a side and matching a textbook type) may become in the fluid and elastic conditions of psychopathic hospital practice, can readily be observed by one who contemplates the formes frustes and entity-sketches that the “incipient, acute, and curable” group of cases presents.

Chart 1 PRACTICAL GROUPING OF MENTAL DISEASES

The order adopted for these groups (which roughly correspond to botanical or zoological orders) is a pragmatic order for successive exclusion on the basis of available tests, criteria, or information: the actual diagnosis is a product of still further differentiation within the several groups.

The case-histories of this book will show that

(a) most shell-shock is in group X, Psychoneuroses,

(b) the diagnostic delimitation problem is chiefly against I. Syphilopsychoses, III. Epileptoses, VI. Somatopsychoses,

(c) the finer differentiation problem is between X. Psychoneuroses and V. Encephalopsychoses. (See Epicrisis, propositions 9-12, 40-43, 72-73.)

I.Syphilitic PsychosesSYPHILOPSYCHOSES

II.FeeblemindednessHYPOPHRENOSES

III.EpilepsyEPILEPTOSES

IV.Alcoholic, Drug, and Poison PsychosesPHARMACOPSYCHOSES

V.Focal Brain Lesion PsychosesENCEPHALOPSYCHOSES

VI.Symptomatic (Somatic) PsychosesSOMATOPSYCHOSES

VII.Presenile-Senile PsychosesGERIOPSYCHOSES

VIII.Dementia Praecox and Allied PsychosesSCHIZOPHRENOSES

IX.Manic-Depressive and Allied PsychosesCYCLOTHYMOSES

X.PsychoneurosesPSYCHONEUROSES

XI.Other Forms of PsychopathiaPSYCHOPATHOSES

No conclusions are intended to be drawn in these introductory pages. Such conclusions as are risked are placed in the Epicrisis (see Section E). But so much can be said: If we are ever to surround the problem of Shell-shock (intra bellum or post bellum), we must approach it with no artificial and à priori limitations of its scope. We must not even agree beforehand that Shell-shock is nothing but psychoneurosis: that would be a deductive decision unworthy of modern science. In the collection of these cases, I have tried to place the topic upon the broadest clinical base. Samples of virtually every sort of mental disease and of several sorts of nervous disease have been laid down, some obviously not instances of Shell-shock, some mixed with clinical phenomena of Shell-shock, others hard to tell offhand from Shell-shock—the whole on the basis that we shall earliest learn what Shell-shock, the pathological event, is by studying what it is not. As the sequel may show, we are perhaps not entitled to regard Shell-shock, the pathological event, as always associated with shell-shock, the physical event. We shall, therefore, find in Section A (see tables on pages 6 and 7).

(1) Cases without either physical shell-shock, or pathological Shell-shock—psychoses of various kinds incidental in the war (--+).

(2) Cases with physical shell-shock but without pathological Shell-shock—psychoses of various kinds seemingly liberated by, aggravated by, or accelerated by the physical factor of shell-shock (+-+).

(3) Cases without physical shell-shock but with both symptoms of pathological Shell-shock as well as of other psychosis (-++).

(4) Cases with physical shell-shock, with clinical phenomena of Shell-shock, as well as of other psychosis (+++).

At the end of Section A, accordingly, we shall be left with two more formulae for discussion in Sections B, C, and D, viz:

(5) Cases without physical shell-shock but with symptoms of pathological Shell-shock (-+-).

(6) Cases with physical shell-shock and pathological Shell-shock (++-).

The data of Section A will solidly prove that Shell-shock, however picturesque the term for laymen or in the argot of the clinic, is medically most intriguing. As we cannot get rid of the term (even by suppressing it in parentheses or by condemning it to the limbo of the so-called), we must make the best of it by calling Shell-shock just the ore in the clinical mine. To say the least, the term is harmless: it merely stimulates the lay hearer to questions. These questions he must ask of the expert. But every time that the expert suavely states that Shell-shock is nothing but psychoneurosis, that expert runs the risk of hurting some patient who may or not have a psychoneurosis but has been called psychoneurotic. All the while, of course, the suave expert is perfectly right—statistically. In fine, the man you have called a victim of Shell-shock is probably a victim of psychoneurosis, but only probably!

Section A shows how he may—not probably, but possibly—be a victim of say ten other things. But it is not that he has an even chance of being one of these ten other things. As the reader watches the procession of cases in Section A, he will perceive that, amongst the ten major groups there studied, some have far greater diagnostic likelihood than others. Thus, syphilis, epilepsy, and somatic diseases will in the sequel prove more dangerous to our success as diagnosticians than, e. g., feeblemindedness or even perhaps alcoholism. But now let us look at these cases systematically, just as if we dealt with so many cases of Railway-spine or any other “incipient, acute, and curable” cases.

Chart 2 PSYCHOPATHIA MARTIALIS

⎧‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾⎫

⎧‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾⎫

SHELL-SHOCK (THE PHYSICAL FACTOR) SHELL-SHOCK (NEUROTIC SYMPTOMS) PSYCHOSIS (SYMPTOMS NON-NEUROTIC)

Absent Absent INCIDENTAL

Present Absent LIBERATED, AGGRAVATED, ACCELERATED PSYCHOSES

Absent COMBINED NEUROSES AND PSYCHOSES [2](Formula -++)

Present COMBINED NEUROSES AND PSYCHOSES (Formula +++)

Absent NEUROSES (Quasi Shell-shock) Absent

Present NEUROSES (True Shell-shock) Absent

Chart 3 PSYCHOPATHIA MARTIALIS FORMULAE

⎧‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾⎫

⎧‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾⎫

S, N, P[3] = SHELL-SHOCK (THE PHYSICAL[4] FACTOR) PRESENT SHELL-SHOCK (NEUROTIC SYMPTOMS) PRESENT PSYCHOSIS (NON-NEUROTIC SYMPTOMS) PRESENT

P =--+

SP =+-+

NP =-++

SNP =+++

N =-+-

SN =++-

I. SYPHILOPSYCHOSES (SYPHILITIC GROUP)

An officer of high rank deserts his command in a crisis: alienists’ report.

Case 1. (Briand, February, 1915.)

M. X. was an officer ranking high in the French army, having military duties of a critical nature and of great importance (social reasons forbid Briand’s giving informatory details). Suffice it to say that he was brought before court-martial for abandoning his post at the very moment when his presence was most urgently required. He turned tail, without taking the most elementary military precautions.

M. X. was passed up to alienists. He was not a case of Shell-shock unless of the anticipatory sort. He was somatically run-down and of lowered morale and now 65 years of age. The campaign had been fatiguing.

The alienists decided that the officer had not been responsible for his non-military acts. He had been, they found, in a state of mental confusion at the time of desertion, such that amnesia for his duties and heedlessness of consequences had allowed him to leave the front without looking behind him or securing substitution. This state of mental confusion had been preceded by overwork and several nights of insomnia.

Moreover he was palpably arteriosclerotic. Blood pressure was high. The history was one of slight shocks and a mild hemiplegia. The confusion at the front was only the most recent of a series of transitory attacks of confusion. At the time of examination this high officer was actually in a state of mild dementia.

M. X. was an old colonial man, malarial, and had been a victim of syphilis.

A naval officer sees hundreds of submarines: General paresis.

Case 2. (Carlill, Fildes, and Baker, July, 1917.)

A naval officer, 36, during August, 1916, asserted that he could see hundreds of submarines. At one time he imagined that he was receiving trunk calls in the middle of the ocean. He was admitted to Haslar, and the Wassermann reaction of the serum was found strongly positive. The spinal fluid was not at this time examined. The officer recovered to some extent, was given no special treatment, and was sent on leave.

He came under observation again in October, 1916, having become very strange in his manner, on one occasion passing water into the coal box, and talked about impending electrocution. His ankle-jerks were found sluggish and there was a patch of blunting to pin pricks. The diagnosis of general paresis was made. The spinal fluid was afterward examined and found to be negative to the Wassermann reaction but contained 15 lymphocytes per cubic mm.

Three full doses of Kharsivan freed him from delusions and left him apparently absolutely sane. It was recommended that he should be kept at Haslar to continue treatment. However, he had been certified insane and was therefore sent to Yarmouth, from which he was discharged in February, 1917, having been in good mental health throughout his stay there.

Re syphilis and general paresis of military officers, as in Cases 1 and 2, Russo-Japanese experience was already at hand. Autokratow saw paretic Russian officers sent to the front in early but still obvious phases of disease. These paretics and various arteriosclerotics, Autokratow saw back in Russia in the course of a few months.

Re naval cases, see also Case 5 (Beaton). Beaton thinks that monotonous ship duty, alternating with critical stress of service, bears on morale and liberates mental disorder.

Neurosyphilis may be aggravated or accelerated under war conditions.

Case 3. (Weygandt, May, 1915.)

A German, long alcoholic and thought to be weakminded, volunteered, but shortly had to be released from service. He began to be forgetful and obstinate, cried, and even appeared to be subject to hallucinations. The pupils were unequal and sluggish. The uvula hung to the right. The left knee-jerk was lively, right weak. Fine tremors of hands. Hypalgesia of backs of hands. Stumbling speech. Attention poor.

It appeared that he had been infected with syphilis in 1881 and in 1903 had had an ulcer of the left leg.

The military commission denied that his service had brought about the disease.

Case 4. (Hurst, April, 1917.)

An English colonel thought himself perfectly fit when he went out with the original Expeditionary Force. He had had leg pains, regarded as due to rheumatism or neuritis. He was invalided home after exhaustion on the great retreat. He was now found to be suffering from a severe tabes. He improved greatly under rest and antisyphilitic treatment. He has now returned to duty.

Case 5. (Beaton, May, 1915.)

An apparently healthy man, serving on an English battle-ship, severed a tendon in a finger. The injury was regarded as minor. The tendon was sutured and the wound healed. During the man’s convalescence he was accidentally discovered to have an Argyll-Robertson pupil and some excess reflexes. Neurosyphilis had probably antedated the accident. But from the moment of this trivial injury, the disease advanced rapidly.

Overwork in service; several months exacting work well performed: General paresis.

Case 6. (Boucherot, 1915.)

A lieutenant of Territorials, aged 41 (heredity good, anal fistula at 30, with ulceration of penis of an unknown nature at the same period). In 1907 when off service and married, his wife gave birth to a child; no miscarriages. Had been a good soldier in service before the war. The lieutenant was called to the colors August 2, 1914, and was detached for special duty, for the performance of which he was much praised by the commanding officers. The work, however, was too much for him and on April 1 he had to be evacuated to the hospital with a ticket saying “Nervous depression following overwork in service.” On April 14 he seemed well enough for a convalescent camp, but, apparently through red tape, was sent to a hospital at Orléans. On June 23 he had to be evacuated to the Fleury annex. His eyes were dull and features flaccid; his whole manner suggested fatigue. His pupils were myotic, tongue tremulous, speech slow and stumbling. Knee-jerks were exaggerated and gait difficult, the right leg dragging. Headaches. He could not perform the slightest intellectual work and was the victim of retrograde and anterograde amnesia. He was aware of the decline of his mental power and was fain to struggle against it, becoming restless and sad. The gaps in his memory grew deeper, he became more and more impulsive, even violent, and had spells of excitement. Dizziness and palpitation developed. Sometimes there were auditory and visual hallucinations of such intense character that he tried feebly to commit suicide with a penknife. He fell into semicoma, and then had a number of apoplectiform attacks. W. R. +

Apparently the moral and physical situation of the lieutenant was absolutely normal when the campaign began and, as he fulfilled detail duties with absolute correctness for a number of months, Boucherot argues that here is an instance of general paresis declanché by overwork.

Syphilis contracted before enlistment. Neurosyphilis aggravated by service.

Case 7. (Todd, personal communication, 1917.)

A laboring man, 42, who always strenuously denied syphilitic infection, proceeded to France eight months after enlistment. He had not been in France three weeks when he dropped unconscious. He regained consciousness, but remained stupid, dull in expression, and with memory impaired. His speech was also impaired. There was dizziness and a right-sided hemiplegia.

He was confined to bed four months and was then “boarded” for discharge.

Physically, his heart was slightly enlarged both right and left; sounds irregular; extra systoles; aortic systolic murmur transmitted to neck; blood pressure 140:40. Precordial pain, dyspnoea.

Neurologically, there was a partial spastic paralysis of the right thigh which could be abducted, could be flexed to 120°, and showed some power in the quadriceps. There was also a spastic paralysis of the right arm, but the shoulder girdle movements were not impaired. There was a slight weakness on the right side of the face. There was no anesthesia anywhere.

The deep reflexes were increased on the right side, Babinski on right, flexor contractures of right hand, extensor contractures of right leg, abdominal and epigastric reflexes absent, pupils active, tongue protruded in straight line.

Fluid: slight increase in protein. W. R. + + +

The Board of Pension Commissioners ruled that the condition had been aggravated by service (not “on service”).

Re general paresis, Fearnsides suggested at the Section of Neurology in the Royal Society of Medicine early in 1916, that in all cases of suspected Shell-shock the Wassermann reaction of the serum should be determined, and went on to say that cases of so-called Shell-shock with positive W. R. often improve rapidly with antisyphilitic remedies.

Duration of neurosyphilitic process important re compensation.

Case 8. (Farrar, personal communication, 1917.)

A Canadian of 36 enlisted in 1915, served in England, and was returned to Canada in February, 1917, clearly suffering from some form of neurosyphilis (W. R. positive in serum and fluid, globulin, pleocytosis 108).

There is no record of any disability or symptom of nervous or mental disease at enlistment. The first symptoms were noted by the patient in May, 1916, six months or more after enlistment. The case was reviewed at a Canadian Special Hospital, October 11, 1916, by a board which reported:

“The condition could only come from syphilitic infection of three years’ standing” (a decision bearing on compensation); but the general diagnosis remained:

“Cerebrospinal lues, aggravated by service.”

The picture which the medical board regarded as of at least three years’ standing was as follows:

History of incontinence, shooting pains, attacks of syncope, general weakness, facial tremor, exaggerated knee-jerks, pupils react with small excursion. Speech and writing disorder, perception dull, lapses of attention, memory defect, defective insight into nature of disorder, emotional apathy.

1. Was the conclusion “aggravated by service” sound? On humanitarian grounds the victim is naturally conceded the benefit of the doubt. But it is questionable how scientifically sound the conclusion really was.

2. Could the condition come only from syphilitic infection of at least three years’ standing? Hardly any single symptom in this case need be of so long a standing; yet the combination of symptoms seems by very weight of numbers to justify the conclusion of the medical board.

Farrar’s case and thirteen others of “Neurosyphilis and the War” were included in a general work on Neurosyphilis (Case History Series, 1917, Southard and Solomon). For military syphilis in general, see Thibierge’s Syphilis dans l’Armée (also in translation).

General paresis lighted up by the stress of military service without injury or disease?

Case 9. (Marie, Chatelin, Patrikios, January, 1917.)

In apparently good health a French soldier repaired to the colors, in August, 1914, being then 23 years old.

Two years later, August, 1916, symptoms appeared: speech disorder with stammering, change of character (had become easily excitable), stumbling gait. He became more and more preoccupied with his own affairs, grew worse, and was sent to hospital in October, 1916.

He was then foolish and overhappy, especially when interviewed. There was marked rapid tremor of face and tongue. Speech hesitant, monotonous, and stammering to the point of unintelligibility. His memory, at first preserved, became impaired so that half of a test phrase was forgotten. Simple addition was impossible and fantastic sums would be given instead of right answers. Handwriting tremulous, letters often missed, others irregular, unequal, and misshapen.

Excitable from onset, the patient now became at times suddenly violent, striking his wife without provocation. After visit at home, he would forget to return to hospital. Often he would leave hospital without permission (of course the more surprising in a disciplined soldier). No delusions.

Serum and fluid W. R. positive; albumin; lymphocytosis.

Neurological examination: Unequal pupils, slight right-side mydriasis, pupils stiff to light, weakly responsive in accommodation, reflexes lively, fingers tremulous on extension of arms.

The patient had, December 5, 1916, an epileptiform attack with head rotation, limb-contractions and clonic movements. Should this soldier recover for disability obtained in service? Marie was inclined to think military service in part responsible for the development of the paresis. Laignel-Lavastine thought so also, but that the amount assigned should be 5%-10% of the maximum assignable.

SYPHILITIC ROOT-SCIATICA (lumbosacral radiculitis) in a fireworks man with a French artillery regiment.

Case 10. (Long (Dejerine’s clinic), February, 1916.)

No direct relation of this example of root-sciatica to the war is claimed nor was there a question of financial reparation.

There was no prior injury. At the end of March, 1915, the workman was taken with acute pains in lumbar region and thighs, and with urgent but retarded micturition.

Unfit for work, he remained, however, five months with the regiment, and was then retired for two months to a hospital behind the lines. He reached the Salpêtrière October 12, 1915, with “double sciatica, intractable.”

There was no demonstrable paralysis but the legs seemed to have “melted away,” fondu, as the patient said. Pains were spontaneously felt in the lumbar plexus and sciatic nerve regions, not passing, however, beyond the thighs. These pains were more intense with movements of legs; but coughing did not intensify the pains. Neuralgic points could be demonstrated by the finger in lumbar and gluteal regions and above and below the iliac crests (corresponding with rami of first lumbar nerves). The inguinal region was involved and the painful zone reached the sciatic notch and the upper part of the posterior surface of the thigh.

The sensory disorder had another distribution, objectively tested. The sacral and perineal regions were free. Anesthesia of inner surfaces of thighs, hypesthesia of the anterior surfaces of thighs and lower legs. The anesthesia grew more and more marked lower down and was maximal in the feet, which were practically insensible to all tests, including those for bone sensation. There was a longitudinal strip of skin of lower leg which retained sensation.

Position sense of toes, except great toes, was poor. There was a slight ataxia attributable to the sensory disorder—reflexes of upper extremities, abdominal, and cremasteric preserved, knee-jerks, Achilles and plantar reactions absent.

The vesical sphincter shortly regained its function, though its disorder had been an initial symptom. Pupils normal.

The “sciatica” here affects the lumbosacral plexus.

As to the syphilitic nature of this affection, there had been at eighteen (22 years before) a colorless small induration of the penis, lasting about three weeks. There was now evident a small oval pigmented scar. The patient had married at 20 and had had three healthy children.

The lumbar puncture fluid yielded pleocytosis (120 per cmm.). Mercurial treatment was instituted.

The treatment has not reduced the pains. Long thinks it was undertaken too long (six months) after onset. The warning for early diagnosis is manifest. There was somehow a delay under the medical conditions of the army.

Re syphilis in munition-workers Thibierge has much to say of French conditions. Throughout his work on syphilis in the army, he stresses the large number of venereal cases in men mobilized for munition-work. Medical inspections ought, according to Thibierge, imperatively to be made in the munition-works and upon all mobilized workmen, whether French or belonging to the Colonial contingents. These men are under military control in France, but they have more opportunities than the soldiers for contracting and disseminating syphilis. They are, in point of fact, very often infected and in a higher proportion than are the soldiers at the front. The munition-workers should also be obliged to report their infections to the physician, whether or no they are under treatment by military or by private physicians.

Thibierge devotes a chapter to syphilis as a national danger. Not only do available statistics prove that there is more syphilis in the population since the outbreak of war, but the number of married women going to special hospitals for syphilis is abnormally high and entirely out of proportion to the number of married women resorting to these clinics in peace times. A certain number are contaminated by their husbands on leave. Thibierge calls attention to the fact of the extraordinary frequency of syphilis in young men (two or three, sixteen to eighteen years of age, at Saint-Louis Hospital at each consultation).

A disciplinary case: Syphilitic?

Case 11. (Kastan, January, 1916.)

Reports varied about a certain German soldier who came up for discipline. Inferiors thought he was harsh and tricky. A lieutenant declared that the man always wanted to have proper respect paid to him, and that he was unduly excited by trifles. The man had become latterly very nervous on account of battle strain and protracted shelling.

July 28, 1915, the man, who had been drinking with comrades the night before, was excitedly talking to an officer concerning relief of a guard. The soldier stated, “As a sergeant on duty with a service record of 15 years, I think it is my affair.” The lieutenant replied, “So far as I am concerned, the matter is settled.” The sergeant yelled, “As far as I am concerned, it is settled also. By the way, my name is Mr. Vice Sergeant …,” and with that the sergeant wrote down the lieutenant’s words and refused to obey the lieutenant’s order to “Stop writing.” The lieutenant drew his sword and said, “Take your hands down.” The sergeant replied, “Surely I am permitted to write.” Lieutenant: “Subordination; don’t forget yourself, Vice Sergeant.…” The sergeant jeered, “You forgot yourself anyhow;” whereupon the lieutenant: “Well, such a thing never happened to me before.” The sergeant, jeeringly, “Nor to me either. If I were not in undress I should know what to do.” The lieutenant: “Vice Sergeant …, remain here. This matter will be settled at once.” The sergeant: “It is Mr. Vice Sergeant …,” whereupon he gave his notebook to a hornblower and said, “Write.” The lieutenant: “Stay.” The sergeant: “What, stay here. No, I’ll not stay,” and made off. The lieutenant called after him, “Put on your service dress and see the captain.” He made ready but said, “This half-idiot gives an order like that to a sergeant with 15 years’ record.”

The examination showed that the man had a hypalgesia. He complained of violent headaches. He said that he had had syphilis 10 years before; there were no bodily stigmata.

Regulations broken: General paresis.

Case 12. (Kastan, January, 1916.)

A German 1st-lieutenant, on active service before the war, had left the service because there was not enough for him to do in peace times. During his war service, he became drunk and had two soldiers bound to a doorpost, with coats unbuttoned and without their caps—a process quite verboten. While in Königsberg, he reported himself ill, and failed to go to a designated hospital. He was accordingly treated as a deserter. He ran up bills with landlady and servant girls, saying that he was going to receive money from his wife. Under hospital examination, he said he was only a Baden man with a lively temperament. He got angry at the phrase test feeding, refused food, got excited when asked to help in the care of other patients, and wrote a letter saying, “If it is the idea to make me nervous by removing the air from me, by prescribing rest in bed—a punishment only suitable for a boy who cannot keep himself neat—and such chicaneries, these philanthropic attempts are bound to fail on my robust peasant nerves. Of course I know that money considerations make the stay of every paying patient desirable, but I am really too good for that. [The expenses were being borne by the state.] I have openly stated what is being here done with me is foolery, and I stick to that phrase. The food, already poor enough, is no better, when the meat of a half-rotten cow comes twice to the table.” This patient was, according to Kastan, a victim of general paresis.

Re general paresis and delinquency, Gilles de la Tourette long ago maintained that there was a medicolegal period in paresis. Lépine in his work on Troubles Mentales de la Guerre speaks of the unexpected frequency of general paresis in the army, and calls attention at the outset to the medicolegal period. The danger of overt delinquency is, in fact, greater under military than under civilian conditions on account of the closer surveillance of the soldier. Desertion and thievery are the main forms.

Unfit for service: General paresis.

Case 13. (Kastan, January, 1916.)

Kastan describes a non-commissioned officer, who came voluntarily into the clinic. It seems that he had absented himself (?) from the army in the suburbs of Königsberg, September 3, 1914. He was arrested October 7th. Once before he had been brought to Kastan’s clinic on the suspicion of general paresis, but had been dismissed as non-paretic. Brought in again in a condition of marked fear, he declared that he had to fall behind his company while he was on the march on account of a feeling of weakness. He had been taken to a hospital and then carried to the suburbs of Königsberg, examined, and found unfit for service.

He had in his 20th year become infected with syphilis, and had recently become forgetful, subject to fears, and easily excitable. He had been very unhappily married with a woman who was hysterical and threatened to shoot and poison him. He lived in a condition of continual quarrels with her. The symptoms that he felt on the march were numbness of the legs and a rush of blood to the head. In the clinic, he was subject to much dreaming and raving about the war. There was excessive perspiration.

1. As to the proper interpretation of this case, details are lacking as to the physical and laboratory side. In fact, it would appear that the suspicion of paresis at his first reception in a clinic was dismissed without resort to laboratory findings.

There are no neurological symptoms in the case clearly suggestive of neurosyphilis, except perhaps the numbness of the legs. The remainder of the picture appears to be entirely psychic. Sensory and intellectual symptoms are missing unless we count the war dreams and mania as intellectual. It appears wiser to count these as emotional in the sense that they were roused by emotion-laden memories. The fear, perspiration, and feelings of head flush are perhaps to be best interpreted as satellites about an emotional nucleus.

Hysterical chorea versus neurosyphilis.

Case 14. (De Massary and Du Sonich, April, 1917.)

There were various complications in the case of a lieutenant (nervous tic in childhood; travel 23 to 30), who was at Antwerp during the period of mobilization. He was taken there by the Germans; was a prisoner in their hands for 55 days; and succeeded under great strain in escaping.

He then entered his regiment, and, passing the examinations, was made an adjutant, and went to the front, March, 1915. He stayed ten months in the Verdun region, under heavy bombardment, and in June was bowled over and buried by a 210. He seemed to be fearless, getting no sensation from shell-bursts except a griping sensation in the bowels.

However, his character had altered in the direction of irritability; and by the end of January, 1916, he had to be evacuated for the first time from the front, for general weakness, with the diagnoses: neurasthenia, neuralgia, dyspeptic troubles, great general fatigue, marked depression. In fact, at Narbonne he was asked no questions for several days on account of his obvious depression. He was given ice-bags for violent headaches, complete rest in bed, cacodylate and sodium nucleinate. In two weeks he was up and about.

At this time appeared choreiform movements, which reached their maximum in two or three days, whereupon he was sent, March 4, 1916, to the neurological centre at Montpellier. Here W. R. positive! Neosalvarsan on the second injection (0.45 and 0.60) yielded a strong reaction, with fever, delirium, vomiting, and then jaundice.

About a month later, he was given twenty more intravenous injections, whereupon the choreic movements now decreased, and July 15 he was given convalescence for three months. October 15 he went back to his dépôt cured; and October 20, on request, went to the front. He was potted and under machine-gun fire at times during the next three months, but the choreic movements did not reappear. January 1 he left the trenches as the division went into billets. January 8, suddenly, without any emotional cause, he began to “dance” again. Accordingly, he was evacuated for the second time, January 10, 1917, with the diagnosis: choreic movements, especially on left; evacuate to special centre.

At Royallieu, a lumbar puncture showed a slight lymphocytosis. The headache improved. He was evacuated January 24, 1917, to Val-de-Grâce, with a diagnosis: Recurrent chorea; first attack followed commotio cerebri, nervous depression, inequality of pupils, various pains, contracted in the army. Another W. R. was positive. Twelve intramuscular injections of oxygen cyanide were given, besides baths. He was then sent to Issy-les-Moulineaux with a diagnosis of tic. He showed choreiform movements affecting the legs alone. When sitting, legs extended and flexed, the knees would abduct, then adduct; the thighs flexed. When standing, flexor movements were produced alternately on the left and the right, the knee being raised high, sometimes striking the patient’s hand. In walking, the thigh and lower leg flexion was always out of proportion to the required step. There was thus a sort of saltatory chorea limited to the legs. The reflexes so far as they could be tested were normal save that the left pupil was fixed to light and accommodation; the right pupil was sluggish to light but accommodated normally. Leucoplakia of the cheeks; nocturnal headaches; and pains resembling lightning pains in arms and legs. Lumbar puncture, March 26, showed blood-stained fluid, and the puncture was followed by headache, vomiting, and slow pulse. The fluid showed a slight lymphocytosis; W. R. negative.

It is clear that a diagnosis limiting itself to the leg trouble would probably content itself with “hysterical chorea.” The lieutenant said that when he saw people “dance” he did have a tendency to imitate them; and when he was cured of that, he did not want to go to Lamalou because he would see the ataxic patients there and might fall back into his “dancing.” However, in view of the pupillary inequality, the lymphocytosis, the leucoplakia, the W. R., and the initial neurasthenia and depression found in the very first hospital in which he was examined, we probably should be entitled to consider that general paresis played a part in the chorea.

Shrapnel fragment driven through skull: General paresis.

Case 15. (Hurst, April, 1917.)

A private, 31, was wounded December 7, 1916, by a shrapnel fragment which entered the skull above the left ear and lodged in the brain, an inch above and 2½ inches below the middle of the right orbital margin. At Netley, December 30, he proved to show a complete internal and external left sided ophthalmoplegia, with the exception of the external rectus. On the right side, there was a complete paralysis of the superior rectus and a partial paralysis of the inferior rectus and levator palpebrae superioris. There was a paresis of the left side of the face. The right plantar reflex was said to have been extensor at the clearing station, but at Netley it and the other reflexes proved to be normal, as were the optic. The patient was stuporous and had incontinence of urine and feces for two days. Shortly after admission, slurring of speech with a long latent period occurred. It was clear that the shrapnel fragment must have passed far above the crus, and it was not plain how isolated lesions of the third and seventh nerve nuclei could have been brought about without injury of the long tracts of the crus.

The Wassermann reaction of the serum was negative, but that of the spinal fluid was positive. Iodide and mercury secured considerable improvement in the mental condition and some diminution in the paralysis. The patient is now extremely pleased with himself and has a speech suggestive of paresis.

Head trauma: Shell-shock effects, over in a few months. Manic-depressive (?) attack more than two years later. X-ray evidence suggesting brain lesion. Serum Wassermann reaction positive.

Case 16. (Babonneix and David, June, 1917.)

A bullet glancing from his gun barrel November 28, 1914, wounded a man in the head, whereupon he lost consciousness and was carried to a hospital and trephined. On coming to, he found that he could not hear and felt pains; but the latter disappeared in a few months. He was given sedentary employment and did his work properly until February, 1917, when he suddenly became sad, wept, slept poorly, stopped eating, had an absent air, and began to complain of his head. He passed whole days without moving, in a sort of stupor, which was then followed by a hypomaniacal agitation in which he walked furiously up and down in the room and threw objects about.

He was found subject to a generalized tremor and he was distinctly weaker on the right side. The tendon reflexes were excessive. The bony sensibility, as well as the pain and temperature sense, and the position and stereognostic senses were completely abolished on the right side. The scar lay on the left side. It was deep and very sensitive to pressure, so that if it was touched ever so slightly the patient began to weep. X-ray indicated loss of substance in the posterior part of the left parietal region. Remains of the projectile were found subcutaneously in the right supraorbital region. The W. R. of the serum was positive. There was no lymphocytosis in the spinal fluid.

Interpretation of this case is manifestly difficult. Four possibilities exist: Syphilis, manic depressive psychosis, traumatic brain disease, and functional shock effects. More than two years had passed between the trauma and the change of character.

Skull trauma in a syphilitic.

Case 17. (Babonneix and David, June, 1917.)

A soldier, 31, sustained fracture of the occiput from shell-burst, and thereafter showed confusion and total loss of memory. Operation November 11 withdrew bony fragments and clots, whereupon the man returned practically to normal. He developed, however, a few seizures, in which he struggled, fell, and lost consciousness, afterward suffering from headache. The tendon reflexes were increased. The occipital cicatrix was a little depressed and slightly painful on pressure.

Lumbar puncture showed a very slight lymphocytosis (5 to 6 cells), practically negative globulin reaction, and a low albumin titer. There were no signs of syphilis in the eyes. The W. R. in the serum was strongly positive. Very possibly the traumatic phenomena in this case can be safely disengaged from the syphilitic phenomena.

Re the mechanism by which trauma evokes or accelerates the course of neurosyphilis, it is probable that most neuropathologists believe that the commotio cerebri causes sundry chemical or physical effects in the nerve tissues such that spirochetes are moved into new and more dangerous places, or such that more appropriate food is supplied to the organisms, which then begin to multiply. Whether the organisms live in a kind of symbiosis in the tissues under ordinary circumstances in the pre-paretic period of the development of neurosyphilis, is unknown. Possibly fat embolism should be added to the list of possible causes of the hastening of the neurosyphilitic process. Fat embolism in the brain has been shown by various authors to be accompanied by minute hemorrhages, in the midst of which by proper stains the fat embolism can be made out.

Shell-wound in battle: General paresis.

Case 18. (Boucherot, 1915.)

A soldier in the Territorial Infantry, 42, a gardener who went to taverns, as he said, “like everybody else,” a widower with two children, a good worker though irascible, had had syphilis as a youth. He was called to the colors at the outbreak of the war and got on well despite tremendous strain. March 9, 1915, he was in a bayonet charge with his regiment and was bowled over by a shell of which a fragment wounded him above the knee and several fragments in the thorax. All these fragments were extracted at a temporary hospital, March 11. The man now became strange, refused to obey orders and did a number of peculiar things so that he was sent to Orléans temporary hospital whence he was evacuated to Fleury Asylum, March 19. He refused to give up his things because he was the master. He did not want to go to bed and wanted to keep on walking constantly. He was without sense of shame, satisfied with himself, grandiose as to his millions in bank and the thirty-six decorations he believed had been awarded him. He mistook the identity of the landscape and of the people about him.

Tongue tremulous; pupils unequal; knee-jerks exaggerated; dysarthria; gaps in memory. In May occurred a number of violent reactions.

In June, however, there was a remission; the ideas of grandeur disappeared first, then the tremors and reflex disorder and finally the speech disorder. There was a slight seizure at this point and the man said he had had another such just before he came to the army. July 20 he was invalided out much improved.

In this case of general paresis there is, besides the syphilis, also alcoholism to consider, so that it is not entirely plain that the exertions of campaign liberated the paresis.

Re wounds and paresis, see also Case 5 (Beaton), in which neurosyphilis advanced rapidly from the time of a trivial injury.

Shell-explosion: Syphilitic ocular palsy.

Case 19. (Schuster, November, 1915.)

Schuster notes briefly a curious result of the explosion of a shell, which caused the patient in question to lose consciousness. Shortly after the explosion, the patient came to his senses again, but a surprising paresis of the eye muscles had developed. This paresis looked precisely like a syphilitic paresis clinically.

Examination of the blood serum yielded a strongly positive Wassermann reaction.

According to Schuster, the explosion of the shell had brought about hemorrhage in vessels supplying the region of the eye muscle nerves or nuclei. The reason for the selection of these vessels for rupture due to shell explosion is, according to Schuster, that the vessels were probably already syphilitically diseased.

Re hemorrhages in the neighborhood of the oculomotor nuclei, the phenomena of polioencephalitis may be recalled. In that disease, the predisposition to hemorrhage is presumed to be alcoholic, as the cases of ophthalmoplegia of this group almost always appear in alcoholics. However, the first case of hemorrhagic superior polioencephalitis was a non-alcoholic one of Gayet (1875), in which the symptoms followed three days after a boiler explosion.

A tabetic lieutenant “shell-shocked” into paresis?

Case 20. (Donath, July, 1915.)

An apparently competent German professor in an intermediate school, a lieutenant of infantry reserves, 33 years old, on the 17th August, 1914, was stunned for a while by the shock of a cannon-firing 25 feet away. Urination became difficult. Headaches and limb pains ensued, with paralysis of fingers, gastric troubles, forgetfulness, especially for names, insomnia, and general scattering of mental faculties.

Neurologically, the pupils were irregular, left larger than right; Argyll-Robertson reaction. Right knee-jerk livelier than left. Achilles reactions absent. Slow and dissociated pain reactions in feet, lower thighs and lower quarter of upper thighs, with hypalgesia or analgesia. Station good; gait steady. Mentally depressed, slow of thought. Speech poor and of indistinct construction (mild dementia). Calculation ability poor. No pleasure in work.

Wassermann reaction of serum weakly positive.

It seems that for a year the patient had been subject to spells of anger. He was irritated by his wife who had been nervous since an earthquake.

On the occasion of the earthquake, 1911, the patient himself had had a spell of difficulty with urination. The spell had lasted two or three months. The patient had had a chancre in 1902, “cured” in four or five weeks with xeroform. In 1908, when about to marry, he had had six mercurial inunctions.

Re tabes, Lépine shows that tabetics are numerous. They are numerous among officers and also in the auxiliary service, in which latter tabetics are maintained on desk duty. Perhaps they had been admitted to such work as unable to march or fight, on the basis of having had so-called “rheumatism.”

Shell-explosion may precipitate neurosyphilis in the form of tabes dorsalis.

Case 21. (Logre, March, 1917.)

An artilleryman, 38, had a large calibre shell explode very near him and afterward could not hear the whistle of a shell without falling down in a generalized tremor, sweating profusely, urinating involuntarily, in a mental state approaching stupidity. Here was a case that might be regarded as one of morbid cowardice in a psychopath, following violent emotion.

The artilleryman proved to be a victim of tabes and of general paresis. The incontinence of urine under the influence of emotion was nothing but an effect of tabetic sphincter disorder. The crisis of cowardice proved nothing but an initial symptom of general paresis.

Shell-explosion; burial: Tabes dorsalis incipiens.

Case 22. (Duco and Blum, 1917.)

A French soldier was buried by effects of shell explosion September 8, 1914. He sustained no wound or fracture.

Incontinence of urine developed. Anesthesia of penis and scrotum. Reflexes absent; pupils sluggish. Wassermann reactions suspicious.

The diagnosis tabes dorsalis incipiens was made (hematomyelia of conus terminalis eliminated).

The patient was estimated to be “40% incapacitated,” according to the French “échelle de gravité” of conditions. A full pension would not be justified in the opinion of the French authors.

SHELL-SHOCK PSEUDOTABES (non-syphilitic, serum W. R. positive). Improvement.

Case 23. (Pitres and Marchand, November, 1916.)

Innkeeper B., 36, a shell-shock and burial victim June 20, 1915, was looked on by a number of physicians as a case of genuine tabes.

Even eight months after the episode, he still showed (when observed by Pitres and Marchand, February 3, 1916) absence of knee-jerks and Achilles jerks, a slight swaying in the Romberg position, pupils sluggish to light, incoördination, delayed sensations. There was also a history of pains in the legs, compared by the patient to those of sciatica. These pains came in crises, the longest of which had lasted 30 hours.

It seems that this soldier’s troubles began the day after his shock with a feeling of swollen feet and of cotton wool under them. He stayed on service, however, walking with increasing difficulty.

At the time of his evacuation, July 10, he could walk with great difficulty. “Strips of lead were between his legs.” He could hardly control movements in the dark, or descend stairs. Often his legs would bend under him. Vesical function sluggish.

After a few months the patient could walk better. In February, 1916, he walked thrusting his legs forward trembling, and dragging toes a little. He could not support himself on either leg. Jerkiness and incoördination in extension or flexion of leg on thigh.

The muscular weakness was decidedly against tabes or at all events a pure tabes. The incoördination proved to be due, not to loss of position sense (which was intact) but to unsteady muscular contractions. Deep sensibility was intact.

There were no mental symptoms. There was a slight hesitation in speech and doubling of syllables, but nothing demonstrable with test phrases.

The serum W. R. was positive.

Shell explosion; unconsciousness: Neurosyphilis.

Case 24. (Hurst, April, 1917.)

A private, 31, was in the retreat from Mons, was blown up by a shell and buried in May, 1915, went back to the front after two months leave, was knocked unconscious by a shell December, 1916. He came to himself two days later in the hospital, but remained confused and lethargic. In England, December 21, his legs were still weak and walking was unsteady. The right pupil reacted neither to light nor to accommodation and was irregular, eccentric, and dilated. The left pupil showed the Argyll-Robertson reaction. There was early primary optic atrophy. The right knee-jerk was slightly exaggerated. The vibration sense was reduced over sacrum and malleoli. At this time the man’s mental condition was practically normal.

The Wassermann reaction of the serum and spinal fluid proved positive. Improvement followed rest, iodide, mercury, and seven injections of salvarsan. By the middle of February he was able to walk well. The right pupil regained its power to react to accommodation, but remained inactive to light. Meanwhile, the left pupil had regained a slight power to react to light.

Re treatment of syphilis, both Thibierge and Lépine give warning of some bad results with arsenobenzol treatment, though Thibierge states that the number of serious accidents and especially of deaths has diminished more and more now that no arsenobenzol (drug No. 914) is given. Encephalitis is the gravest of the untoward results of injection, sometimes appearing in young and vigorous subjects. Hemorrhagic encephalitis appears to occur more frequently after the second injection than after the first, and according to Thibierge may be especially suspected in subjects who after the first injection present much fever, congestion of face, and cutaneous eruptions. Treatment in these cases should be suspended or given in moderate doses.

Shell-explosion: Neurosyphilis. Fit for light duty.

Case 25. (Hurst, April, 1917.)

A corporal, 26, blown up by a shell December 7, 1916, was admitted to the hospital on the 13th, dazed and with symptoms of a left-sided hemiplegia of organic origin. The right pupil was larger than the left. There was a bruise of the scalp in the right parietal region. The man had had syphilis at 16. The Wassermann reaction of the serum was strongly positive. Rest, salvarsan, mercury, and iodides were given, and the general symptoms and hemiplegia gradually disappeared, until on December 12 there was only a moderate weakness of the left side, with knee-jerks in excess, abdominal reflexes absent, and the Babinski reaction.

The Wassermann reaction was still strongly positive. Salvarsan, mercury, and iodide were continued. January 6, 1917, the plantar reflex had become flexor. The abdominal reflex returned. Babinski’s second sign (combined flexion of thigh and pelvis) was now the only evidence of organic disease. Further antisyphilitic treatment removed this sign also. February 28, the man was discharged fit for light duty, with unequal pupils and positive Wassermann reaction, and a complete amnesia for the four weeks following his blowing up in the trenches.

Re fitness for light duty, see remarks on Case 20 concerning desk duty for certain tabetics.

Re the premature or unexpectedly early appearance of neurosyphilis under war conditions, the early claims of some authors have not been maintained. In the above instance, the infection was at 16 and the shell explosion occurred at 26, namely, at about the right interval for the development of neurosyphilitic signs. Gerver states that military service brings out the lesions of paresis earlier than they would otherwise come. Bonhoeffer has been unable to show that cerebrospinal syphilis is favored in its development by the exhaustion factor.

SHELL-SHOCK PSEUDOPARESIS (non-syphilitic). Recovery.

Case 26. (Pitres and Marchand, November, 1916.)

June 19, 1915, a shell exploded some distance from Lieutenant R. He remembers the gaseous smell, the bursting of several shells nearby and a sensation of being lifted into the air. When he recovered consciousness, he was in hospital at Paris-Plage, covered with bruises and scratches. They told him he had been delirious and had vomited and spat blood.

June 24, his wife came to see him, but this visit he could not remember. Nor could his wife at first recognize him, he was so thin. He roused a few moments and recognized his wife, but relapsed into torpor again. Speech was difficult and ideas confused.

A few days later he was able to rise; but his mental status grew worse, especially as to speech and writing, the latter quite illegible. There was insomnia, or, if he slept, war dreams.

August 7, he began a period of five months’ convalescence passed with his family, depressed, given to spells of weeping, confined to bed or couch, unable to “find words,” conscious of his state and troubled about it, speaking of nothing but the war, and afraid to go out for fear of ambuscade. There was at first a slight lameness of the right leg. Although he could walk, he felt pain in the knee on flexing the right leg on the thigh. He walked holding this leg in extension.

On going back to the colors, he was immediately evacuated to the Centre Neurologique at Bordeaux, January 20, 1916.

Examination found a bored, impatient, irritated man, vexed that a man who was not sick should be sent up “comme fou.”

Omitting negative details, neurological examination showed slight lameness as above, body stiff and movements jerky, difficult, unsteady gait. The lieutenant could stand for some time on either leg. Tongue and face tremulous during speech. Limbs moderately tremulous, especially in the performance of test movements.

Knee-jerks and Achilles jerks absent. Other reflexes, including pupillary, normal. Segmentary hypalgesia of right leg, especially about knee. Tremulous speech and writing. Patient would stop short in speaking for lack of words.

Malnutrition. Appetite good, but a bursting feeling after meals.

Skin dry, scaly on legs, fissured on fingers.

Serum W. R. negative. Fluid not examined.

Mental examination. Conscious and complaining of his troubles, Lieutenant R. claimed persistently that he was not sick. Memory for recent events was in general poor. Errands easily forgotten. Lost in the street. Complaint of corpse odors round him. Everybody is looking at him and making fun of him. He was apt to insult bystanders. He was afraid of German spies. Things in shops angered him as they seemed to him to be of German manufacture.

There were frequent periods of depression, with pallor and no spontaneous speech for some hours to a half-day. Headaches coming on and stopping suddenly.

As to diagnosis, the first impression, say Pitres and Marchand, was that of general paresis. The progress of symptoms after the shock was consistent with this diagnosis. The mental state and the physical findings seemed consistent, although the pupils were normal. His partial insight into his symptoms was not inconsistent with the diagnosis. He had a characteristic self-confidence. There had been four stillbirths (two twins); two children are alive, 11 and 13. Typhoid fever at 30. Syphilis denied. No mental disease in the family.

The patient had never done military duty, having been invalided for “right apex.” But he had volunteered and been accepted in September, 1914.

How was Lieutenant R. cured? Apparently by rest in the Centre Neurologique. Pitres and Marchand do not speak of the subtle relation between mental state and the idea of non-return to military service. This motive might still work even if Lieutenant R. kept protesting sincerely that he wanted to go back into military service.

War strain; shell explosion; unconsciousness. Sensory and motor disorders. Subject an old syphilitic.

Case 27. (Karplus, February, 1915.)

A captain, 34, was under much stress and strain in the field and gave himself over to excesses of alcohol and tobacco. August 25, 1914, at the Krasnik battle he suddenly saw at his right a gleam of fire and was afterward able to remember very distinctly the words of a lieutenant standing near by, “The man is dead.” Three or four hours later he came to himself at a relief post, vomited and bled a good deal from nose and mouth. He heard later that he had been thrown on his back.

Manual tremors and general pains developed in the next few days. Two weeks after the accident a slight nystagmus on looking to the left appeared, but there was otherwise no disorder of head or extremities. He was able to sit up, supported by his arms, and he was able to contract his abdominal muscles normally. As for his legs, active movements were limited and weak. He could not lift his legs. The paralysis was more marked distally. He could walk with the support of two persons, but was unable to lift his feet from the ground. The right upper abdominal reflex was elicited, and both patellar reflexes were tolerably active. Cremasteric and plantar reflexes were absent. Neither of the Achilles jerks could be produced. There was hypesthesia and hypalgesia of the lower extremities, and of the back up to a horizontal line corresponding with the ninth dorsal segment; thermo-hyperesthesia and disorder of vibration sense in the lower legs. Both the motor and the sensory disorders were more marked on the right than the left. Insomnia and battle dreams.

The gait disorder and paresis gradually improved. There was no alimentary glycosuria and adrenalin produced no mydriasis. In the course of several weeks the patient gained seven kilograms, began to sleep well and showed gradual improvement in his gait and in the execution of various movements with his feet. The abdominal reflexes were now both present, but there were no plantar reflexes and the Achilles were still both absent. The sensory disorder remained unchanged, so far as the skin was concerned, but the deep sensibility improved. Both legs from the knee down were somewhat cold.

This man had had syphilis at twenty-two, had gone through an inunction cure, and repeated W. R.’s came through negative. He had suffered from vomiting spells and anxiety feelings for a number of years which had been diagnosed by physicians as cardiac neurosis. Yet for a year before going into the war he had felt absolutely well.

Shell-explosion: Amnesia; syphilitic hemiplegia. Recovery except for amnesia as to brief period and loss of occupational skill.

Case 28. (Mairet and Piéron, July, 1915.)

A man of 40 underwent shell shock June 15, 1915, and had no remembrance of what happened up to July, 1915, when in hospital at Tunis he felt “born again.”

Examined in January, 1916, it was found that he had a left hemiplegia (in fact, he had a syphilitic hemiplegia on that side, several years before, which had disappeared under antisyphilitic treatment). This hemiplegia passed, but he then had crises of depression due to his despair at not being able to know who he was and what he was doing. He could speak French and Spanish, and knew from the hospital ticket that he was born in Spain; but he had no idea what had happened to his relatives or what he was doing in France. He had, however, a very correct idea of what happened during six months after July, 1915.

One morning in April, 1916, his old memories came back all of a sudden on waking. The gap was filled up to the moment of the shock. There was no gap left except for a period of about 25 days following the shock. He now found that he knew a little English but that he had lost his stenography as well as his professional skill at typewriting.

Re French statistics for the occurrence of general paresis, Lautier found 27 cases in 426. Early in the war, Boucherot at Fleury received four cases of paresis among 107 cases; the majority of these, however, had not left the interior. Consiglio in Italy received two cases out of 270.

Re hemiplegia in this case, it may be inquired whether the hemiplegia which developed after the shell explosion on the same side of the body on which the patient had a true syphilitic hemiplegia, was really syphilitic or not. Was it not, perhaps, in some sense psychogenic? A similar question may be raised concerning cases in which the locus minoris resistentiae becomes the site of symptoms. See Cases 409-414.

Shell-shock: Hysterical blindness. Signs of cerebrospinal syphilis: Nevertheless, amaurosis functional.

Case 29. (Laignel-Lavastine and Courbon, March, 1916.)

A soldier of the class of 1906 underwent shell-shock August 13, 1914, regaining consciousness 20 days later, but blind. The light of the shellburst, he said, was the last thing he had seen.

For sixteen months, he was transferred from hospital to hospital, looked on sometimes as blinded; sometimes as feigning. Finally, on the isolation service of Maison-Blanche, December 15, 1915, he received an ophthalmologist’s diagnosis namely, hysterical amaurosis. At this time there were found: stereotyped winking, with slight lachrymation, a slight left external strabismus, limitation in movement of all the extrinsic muscles of both eyes, especially to the right and in convergence and elevation; pupils slightly smaller than normal—and the general impression of a genuinely blinded or amblyopic subject. He seemed to be able to distinguish faint whitish spots, without contour or color, in objects brought to a distance of at least 40 cm.

He also complained of bad feelings inside his head on the left side, and he proved to have a left-sided hemianesthesia of hysterical nature. There were no other sensory disorders and no reflex disorders.

The nasolabial fold on the left side was flattened out, and there was also on the same side a slight diminution in the lower abdominal skin reflexes, and no response to plantar stimulation. Examination of the mouth showed leucoplakia, and the history showed that the man’s fifth child was born before term and died at two months. Lumbar puncture yielded lymphocytosis (55 cells) and an excess of albumin. The fundus examination showed a slight papillary disorder, suggesting a retrobulbar affection of the optic nerves.

However, the preservation of the pupil reflexes seemed to indicate that nine-tenths, at least, of the amaurosis was functional. After mercurial treatment the headache grew less and the man was able to see somewhat better with his right eye.

Laignel-Lavastine and Courbon suggest that there was a dynamic disorder in this case, bearing the same relation to vision as mental confusion bears to the process of ideation. Analogous phenomena have been found in the sense of hearing, in such wise that the victims can, as it were, passively hear but do not listen.

Re functional eye cases, see below, especially Cases 432-437.

Shell shock (functional) phenomena in a syphilitic.

Case 30. (Babonneix and David, June, 1917.)

A marine, 26, on land service March, 1916, was buried by the explosion of a large calibre shell which killed most of his comrades. He remained for a time in a sort of lethargy. Coming to, he found himself victim of a right hemiplegia and deafmutism, which phenomena vanished under electricity.

In July, however, he had to be sent to a hospital on account of his sufferings, which received the diagnoses commotio cerebri, disorder of consciousness, disorientation, delirium, amnesia, over-emotionality. He was sent back to the front in December, 1916, but promptly reported sick, with headaches and insomnia.

Examination showed nonorganic nervous disorders, consisting in a variable and patchy anesthesia of the legs, anesthesia of the conjunctiva and pharynx, and over-reaction, with sighing, during the course of the examination. The organic signs were: exaggeration of tendon reflexes, equilibration disorder, and incapacity to stand on one foot or execute a half turn or to stand still with eyes closed, and disorder of position sense. The lumbar puncture showed no cells, a slight globulin reaction, and an albumin titer within the normal. There was a leucoplakia and a positive W. R. The man was emaciated, febrile, and showed signs, with the X-ray, of bronchial lymph node disease. According to Babonneix and David, the normality of the fluid indicates that the phenomena here were Shell-shock phenomena, despite the indisputable syphilis of the blood serum.

Re occurrence of functional phenomena in syphilitics, Freud’s remark may be recalled to the effect that a large proportion of his hysterics and other psychoneurotics are the offspring of syphilitics.

Consider in this connection also Case 28: an old syphilitic hemiplegia was followed by a probably psychogenic or hysterical hemiplegia on the same side.

Vestibular symptoms in a neurosyphilitic.

Case 31. (Guillain and Barré, April, 1916.)

A soldier, Colonial, 29, was twice in the 6th Army neurological centre. The first time, February, 1916, he was under observation for astasia-abasia, having been invalided twice for this disease,—once in 1915. This man had had syphilis at 21, and was then taken care of at Saint-Louis Hospital and at Cochin. A volunteer for the duration of war, September, 1914, he had intermittent disorders of station and walking, which caused his invaliding January, 1915. As the trouble stopped, he asked to go back to the front in September, but the same difficulty reappeared with fatigue, and he was sent to the army neurological centre. When standing, there was a ceaseless trembling of the whole body but especially of the legs, with tendency to propulsion. In walking also, there was a trepidant abasia, sometimes dizziness, and even a sudden fall. Standing on one foot he trembled and fell.

Examined on his back, muscular strength was found intact in all limbs, and there was no trembling or incoördination or intention tremor in the performance of any movements, though there was a slight trembling of the raised fingers and hand. Reflexes were normal. The right pupil was dilated; the left pupil reacted sluggishly. There were lateral nystagmiform movements to the left. Caloric nystagmus appeared from the right ear in 15 seconds, from the left in 30. Rotatory nystagmus appeared in 35 seconds on both sides. Lumbar puncture yielded a fluid with a slight lymphocytosis; albumin, .3 grams; chloride, 7.30; sugar normal.

Rest in bed improved the astasia-abasia, and the man was sent back to his corps, February 20, 1916. He came back March 16, having had a dizzy spell, with suffocation feeling and a fall, whereupon the trepidant astasia-abasia had reappeared. There were none of the so-called defensive reflexes. The neuromuscular excitability of gastrocnemii was less on the right than on the left. A von Graefe sign was sometimes found; no diplopia save on looking far to right.

Lay reflections on syphilis: Suicidal attempts.

Case 32. (Colin and Lautier, July, 1917.)

A man was called to the auxiliaries at the outbreak of the war, and served as stretcher-bearer at the Marne. He then became an attendant at the Grand-Palais. Acquiring gonorrhoea, he was cared for but he grew depressed. The blood was examined and the W. R. found positive. The physician immediately made known the result without circumlocution, and knowing vaguely that the W. R. meant syphilis, the patient felt an irresistible impulse to suicide, and cut his throat. It seems that he had often before said that if he got syphilis he would kill himself. Recovering from his wound, he was invalided to Villejuif, Sept. 19, 1916, breathing through a cannula and responding to questions in writing. He had always been a nervous and emotional man, a farmer in Auvergne; he was married and the father of several children.

Examination showed that the recurrent nerves had been cut and that the man must needs always breathe through the cannula. In point of fact, the W. R., only partially positive at the outset, did not indicate syphilis, and the gonorrhoea was now cured. But though the patient knew these facts, his hypochondria persisted, basing itself upon the suicidal wound. He said that his larynx had been stolen and he wondered why. He said that he had violent crises of suffocation, though there was, as a matter of fact, no difficulty with his breathing. Verdigris, he said, was forming on his cannula. Self-accusations about the suicide developed. On being transferred to his department asylum, he made a suicidal attempt on the trip.

Of course the gonorrhoea may have served as a partial factor in the genesis of the case, and his own mental attitude toward the contraction of syphilis may have been another factor.

The imitation of chancre.

Case 33. (Pick, July, 1916.)

A married German farmer, 32, was in Prague hospital in 1908 during his period of military service and was then treated by inunction for a local chancre. He was given mercurial injections a year later for rash.

In 1912, he had signs of syphilis in the mouth.

He was sent home from service in 1913, with ulcers of hand.

At the beginning of the war he was found to have ulcers on the knee, legs, and mouth, and was sent home for six months.

Again called up in 1915, the ulcers were still in evidence; he got inunctions in a military hospital four months.

He was sent to his corps in July and had no relapse until July, 1916, when he was detailed for active service. Thereupon, ulcers began on the left hand and right leg. He reported sick, but was sent nevertheless to the front. In hospital he was found to have several scars about one inch across on each leg, on the dorsum of the left hand, at the right of the left index finger, and elsewhere. These scars were deeply pigmented. One of them was square! There were other recent ulcers that closely resembled tertiary ulcers. The most recent of these ulcers was angular, intensely red, and showed remains of a collapsed vesicle. There was a deep dark scab on the mucous membrane of the left cheek.

There is no doubt that these ulcers were produced by some caustic, the nature of which remains unknown. The patient had, however, been able to evade military obligation during peace time and for two years during war time.

Re simulation, according to Pick, some 5 to 7 per cent venereal diseases in the German army have been simulations. Gonorrhoea is simulated by soap, balanitis by cantharides, soft chancre by soap and mercuric or mercurous chloride mixed, hard chancre by a fluid or powder containing NaOH, Na₂CO, and NaCl. Secondary syphilitic signs are imitated by cantharides or garlic, producing scrotal dermatitis. Tertiaries are imitated with caustics.

Ramón to Rosina: a soldier’s letter to his fiancée.

Case 34. (Buscaino and Coppola, January, 1916.)

“I am here to stay a month. Believe me, it is better here than in the army. There is a rule that we may eat as much as we can and everything is of the very best. The servants treat us like brothers. Do not think it is a nuisance to be inside four walls with a wee bit of a garden. No, indeed! But I have got to act the fool and from the very first day I began to play and act crazy with a kitten, so that if you had seen me you would say: “Ramón is really crazy.” Rosina, dear, to avoid paying taxes you have got to be a smuggler. And now that I am at the ball I have got to dance. I want to see if after all the suffering I cannot get something better. I am better off here than at the regiment. I sleep in a fine warm bed, and they have only cold straw; I have good food and drink and plenty of milk, and they have poor food and drink and so little.

“I expect to go home in about three weeks. I would have been there before if some fool of a spy at our place had held his tongue and minded his own business. At the same time, Rosina, dear, remember what I told you at Leghorn: that they had some officers sent there to get information and instead of going home they asked somebody else and were told that I had never been sick and had never had neurasthenia. When this information was got from the officers I was called to the office and they read to me that all that I had said and done was not true. I kept on acting the fool, and as they were still doubtful they sent me here, where there is a professor who passes me every morning in the garden and says: “How are you?” I always say: “I am the same,” acting like a crazy man. Let me tell you, Rosina dear, not to say anything contrary to this in your letters because they open and read everything in order to find out everything that happens and everything that is said. Now what you must do is to ask me how I am feeling, and whether my headaches are gone, and whether I have them all the time as formerly, and any other trifle that will help me.”

Rosina’s fiancé had a strongly positive W. R. in the serum. It was negative in the fluid. He was returned to the front.

II. HYPOPHRENOSES (THE FEEBLE-MINDED GROUP)

Moron of use at front (alienist’s report).

Case 35. (Pruvost, 1915.)

Vigouroux reports concerning a tanner of 19 who could not read, write or calculate (3 plus 8 equals 14) and had been of the 1916 class in an infantry regiment at Brest, on the occasion of his asking to be sent to the front more speedily:

Mental weakness, with insufficient school and theoretical knowledge but with the ability to assimilate practical ideas, though not knowing how to read, write or calculate; seems to have earned his living in several lines. “As a soldier, he does not know the insignia of the different ranks but understands how to obey a superior officer. Understands a gun and can tell a chargeur from a Le Bel gun. Moreover he seems to be perfectly stable, fixed in his wishes, persistently and intelligently wants to go to the front and kill Boches. He appears to be well disciplined and educable. Although feebleminded, he appears to us able to be useful at the front, though he should not be employed in any undertaking requiring initiative or foresight.”

An imbecile, superbrave.

Case 36. (Pruvost, 1915.)

A loquacious, active fellow, 22, with very slight school knowledge and no idea of military ranks (treated his superiors like his comrades), was often punished in the barracks. He did not get on well with his instructors. His activities were never interrupted by any obstacles or by derision. He kept singing and talking enthusiastically during the mobilization. He was the butt of his section.

At Dinant he did very well; though his section was losing a good many men he remained calm. He was careless of danger and remained at his post firing ceaselessly at the enemy and giving a magnificent example to the few comrades who remained with him. In fact, he remained so long in his shelter that he was surrounded and taken prisoner. He escaped, swam the Meuse and got back to his regiment.

An imbecile of service in barracks work.

Case 37. (Pruvost, 1915.)

A farmer, 36 (father alcoholic, mother always sick, two brothers at the front; patient had typhoid at an unknown age; had gone to school at 13 but “learned nothing”; worked in fields with his brother who gave him some pennies on Sunday), was put into the auxiliary service by the Council at 20. Patient said he was not strong enough for this service. In 1914 the Council reconsidered the case and put him into a regiment of infantry. He could not be given military instruction or execute the most simple drilling manual. He said that 4 plus 2 equalled 7; 4 plus 3 equalled 5. He was of an excellent character, very docile and easily directed. He did all his comrades’ barracks work and was very proud because, as he said, “I do everything they tell me to do.” He was happy in working, everybody was good to him, but he had no comrades. He had no general knowledge and knew nothing about the war but that they were fighting the Boche.

Re imbeciles, Colin, Lautier and Magnac found amongst 1000 soldiers entering Villejuif, 53 imbeciles. Twenty-four of them had been either exempt or retired at the outset of the war, when military surgeons had reviewed them and considered them fit for service. Several of the 29 others also had shown previous evidence of imbecility.

Of course, French military surgeons may have felt that a number of these men would be of just such service in barracks and otherwise as Case 37 (Pruvost). But for one or two cases like Cases 37 and 41 of Pruvost, there are great numbers of other imbeciles who prove quite useless in the army. Two of the Villejuif cases had been volunteers: one volunteer declared that, if he had been intelligent, he never would have enlisted! Ten cases proved unable to use a gun; one turned his gun upon his mates. One regularly forgot the password. One (see Case 42 of Lautier) thought the war too long and tried to take command of the company in order to finish the war one way or the other. Three of the imbeciles had to be evacuated for desertion (unmotivated fugues); two of them cursed their officers. Some of the imbeciles had an emotional diarrhoea throughout their service.

Colin suggests that line officers and military surgeons ought to agree that these men are not fit for service, and that the civil authorities of the home towns should advise the review boards about known imbeciles and criminals. In point of fact, previous knowledge of imbecility could have been obtained quite readily in 27 of the 53 cases observed by Colin.

A feeble-minded inventor.

Case 38. (Laignel-Lavastine and Ballet, 1917.)

A jockey of Nîmes, 31, entered the service May 15, 1917. He retired before the war. He was in the auxiliaries at the moment of mobilization. Nothing is known as to any pathological episodes in his past. He said he had been a poor scholar, had left the primary school at eleven hardly knowing how to write or spell, but he had a lively imagination and was a happy-go-lucky youth, playing many tricks on the trades people. He tried a variety of ideas in the industrial or commercial world with very varying success. He had a mechanical taste. The Colonial Exposition at Marseilles caused him to float a variety of projects, from that of having the visitors photographed on a camel to the sale of lemonade. He said he had been a jockey and then a trainer and had finally become a valet de jockey at Maisons Laffitte. He was a gambler and invented a “system.” He made various inventions in relation to horses. At the end of 1914 he had plans for a bomb thrower and placed his discovery at the service of the War Minister. He was not discouraged by the lack of success of the bomb thrower. He now made an aerial torpedo carrier. He had the idea of the tanks. However, he found the secret of his torpedo carrier printed in a magazine. There was a slight difference between the German apparatus and his own.

From this time he began to be mistrustful, and now he jealously avoided entering into any details about his inventions and he did not let his officers see his plans. The Commandant offered to give a place in the safe to his documents, but he could not embrace the offer. He now invented a counter-torpedo machine. He went on leave to Paris, asked an audience of the Minister of Marine, who put him in relation to the Committee on Inventions, who put him off, desiring that he should forward all his plans. He emerged from one of his interviews so excited that there was a scandal on the public street and the police commissary evacuated him to Val-de-Grâce, but the patient says he does not remember this incident. He came on service of Laignel-Lavastine May 15. He shortly wrote again to the Minister, who again referred him to the Committee on Inventions. He protested to the President of the Republic and wrote directly to the King of England, who referred him to the Military Administration. He is now occupied in creating a machine to destroy the first line trenches and continues to write to the Ministry. He has documents buried underground in a secret place. He still talks with great vivacity of his discoveries.

According to Laignel-Lavastine, we deal with a feeble-minded person who has for many years had a délire raisonnant of the inventing group.

Re feeblemindedness in the British Army, Shuttleworth found 70 who had joined from special schools for the feeble-minded in London, and 100 from Birmingham in the year 1915. The institutional “children” were in general good at drilling and obeying. One of them, given to lying and stealing, got into constant trouble in Flanders.

Sir George Savage stated that he had sometimes run the risk of allowing enlistment of men who had shown earlier in life a weakness for lying and pilfering, and remarked that such men might make good soldiers. A case like the above (38) would run counter to this view. On this matter, see below Case 183 (Henderson), one of pathological lying.

An imbecile who walked lame.

Case 39. (Pruvost, 1915.)

A soldier, 20, eight days after being called to the colors, complained of pain in the knee and hip. He was observed for 18 days in hospital and then sent back to his company; but he continued to complain of the pains, and the regimental surgeon sent him to a neurological center where the joints were found to be normal and where no sensory, motor or reflex disorders were in evidence. The man continued to walk lame and insisted he could not get about without a cane. He also complained of his mouth and his belly and, though he was very ruddy, said he was á bout de forces.

It was a question of simulation. The man, however, was a feebleminded person who could not read, write or calculate. He was invalided as such.

Enlistment to improve character.

Case 40. (Briand, February, 1915.)

A village boy had passed for simple ever since typhoid fever at 8. He had learned to read and write, but had always been impulsive and subject to fugues, running to see his grandmother, or off as a truant. It was decided that he, at 19, should enlist to improve his character. But one fine day, even before the war, he deserted. He said, in explanation, that he had lost his way, and he was being examined mentally when mobilization began.

He looked ape-like, with spread ears; had a low forehead, a head flattened behind, an asymmetrical face, prognathous jaws, an arched palate, and defective teeth. He talked freely of homosexual relations, and said he wandered off because it occurred to him to do so. He was determined to be unfit for service.

An imbecile who may be sent to the front.

Case 41. (Pruvost, 1915.)

A Parisian sandwichman, 25, of unknown parentage and a state ward, placed out with a farmer at 12, escaping with a friend to Bordeaux at 14, thence leading a wild, improvident life at Lyons, Marseilles and Paris, sleeping in fields and hedges, earning 22 sous a day but in no case mixing with the police, was examined for physical inefficiency at 20 years. He wanted to enlist but was refused. He insisted and was very proud of the fact that he got in as the Major said to them, “Let him go in.” He could hardly read, write or calculate but was by reason of his adventurous life full of practical resources. He was irascible and frequently crimed, whereupon he would cry under the Captain’s window, “Robber band, idiots, I shall write to the Minister.” He was passionately fond of military life, though he had but the vaguest notions about the commands, the names of generals and the like. He wanted to drill. His comrades played practical jokes upon him asking him to look for a trajectory, for the squad’s umbrella and the key to the drill ground. They also told him he had been proposed to be corporal, whereupon he was greatly overjoyed and immediately sewed stripes on his sleeve and began to give commands. He said if they put him among the auxiliaries he would throw the adjutant in the water. He sang and swung his gun with joy when he went to the front. He thought there were stripes hanging to the barbed wire and wanted to pick as many as possible. Such a man may be safely sent to the front although he will bear watching. At the date of report this man had been at the front two months doing very well.

Re the comparative success of the Germans in the matter of excluding imbeciles, Meyer found that 8 per cent of the mental cases in the army were cases of mental defect.

Imbecile with sudden initiative.

Case 42. (Lautier, 1915.)

A soldier, 41, a farmer, from the Department of the Marne, married, childless, was called to the colors August 31, 1914. He was on guard duty until May, 1915, watched prisoners until October and was finally sent to the front, February, 1916, where he fell sick.

“He was tired in his head.” “His commanding officer made him drill without rhyme or reason; he would have been able himself to have commanded with greater intelligence.” He once attempted to put himself at the head of the company to lead them against the Boche; this idea arrived to him all of a sudden in a phase of perfect confidence and sang froid. He thought his comrades would follow him and that the officers would do likewise. He hoped thus to be able to end the war one way or the other. He was getting tired of the war and regretted his family life and kept saying that this was no existence for family men. “We ought to attack or ask for peace.” No one followed him and his comrades said he was un peu fou but he did not share this opinion.

In point of fact he hardly knew how to read or write and at home lived with his relatives, submitting himself entirely to their guidance. He was much afraid of being punished and often feared that he had done badly as he had trop de conscience. He was non-alcoholic and without hereditary or acquired neuropathic taint. He had no pronounced stigmata of degeneration. He was rather reticent about certain mystical ideas of a political tinge. At Villejuif, whither he was brought February 17, 1916, he received a diagnosis of imbecility.

Emotional fugue in a subnormal subject.

Case 43. (Briand, February, 1915.)

A soldier in the Territorial Army, 40, appeared before the examining board in a depressed, dejected-looking state, speaking slowly but collectedly and lucidly. Mobilized the second day, this man was much afraid that he could not get through the marches, and asked for a special examination to determine whether his feet did not make him unsuitable for fatigue. Two physicians thought he was unsuitable for marching, and another thought he put it on. A trial march was not executed well. He was kept in barracks but jumped the wall, put on civilian clothes, and made off for Paris. But a relative, warned by his wife, finally got him to go to the authorities. He was told that he ought to return in the afternoon, when suddenly he was arrested.

It seems that the man relied on the opinion of the two physicians and discounted that of the third. He thought himself the victim of an injustice, and not knowing how to get on, it occurred to him that he would abandon the regiment and get out of the difficulty. It was without resistance, however, that he gave himself up as a prisoner. This fugue was neither unconscious nor amnestic, nor was it due to an irresistible impulse; nor can we say that it was due to a genuine intellectual disorder. It was an emotional fugue, and partly due to the man’s long-standing depression. It seems that he had inherited this character from his father. He was below normal intelligence, had a very poor education, lost his wife, and grew more and more sombre. He married again, but this time a neuropath. He began to be preoccupied with his health and he had even some ideas of suicide. At the time of his leaving the regiment, he had passed through a phase of depression of about 6 months’ duration, and at this time had a number of hypochondriacal ideas with poor appetite and loss of weight.

Diagnostic dispute between regimental surgeon and alienist.

Case 44. (Kastan, January, 1916.)

Julius Q. was sent on guard April 14, 1915, with orders to remain there. While on guard he made a noise and made a movement as if to take a knife from his pocket. Ordered to empty his pockets, he attacked the other guards. The witnesses said that he was drunk.

Upon examination, it appeared that he had recognized and called by name those present in the guardhouse, despite his supposed intoxication. There were red spots on the skin and a certain amount of analgesia. His powers of computation and reasoning were poor. He was unable to explain the meaning of a picture shown him. He maintained that he had an indomitable desire for drink. A diagnostic draught of alcohol yielded no reaction. Upon dismissal, he got drunk at once again, and had again to be imprisoned in a state of excitement. What the outcome in this case was is not stated by Kastan.

The previous history seems important. Julius Q. had been a state ward. He had escaped several times from the institution but had always to be brought back again because he could not be trained at home. He had once attacked a supervisor in the state institution with a knife. It seems that he had at this time been drunk, having been brought back drunk to the institution.

Two years before the war he had been taken to the Breslau Hospital for the Insane on account of fits of insanity. In 1913 he had been a patient in Wuhlgarten on similar grounds. The diagnosis there had been epileptoid degeneration, psychopathic constitution, imbecility, or epilepsy(?). He had been convicted of crimes a number of times and put to labor. He had been given to cruelty in childhood.

Despite this, he was declared perfectly healthy in mind and body by the regimental surgeon.

In 1914, Q. fell suddenly ill in prison (he was presumably in prison for a military offence), and smeared the cell with feces, saying that he was able to do that as he could pay for anything. He stared at the floor and failed to answer questions. He remarked, however, that he had frequently been convicted for breach of the peace and assault and battery, and he said his father had been a drunkard, and he acknowledged hallucinations to the extent of saying that he heard his name called when he was alone.

The story of this case warrants our inquiring why such a patient was kept in the army. He was kept there clearly on account of the report of the regimental surgeon, who could not have taken seriously the previous history of the case, or else thought the patient perfectly good cannon fodder.

The hypothesis of syphilis apparently need not be entertained. That of feeblemindedness is possibly the fundamental diagnosis, yet epilepsy was considered by the German diagnosticians, doubtless on account of the sudden violent attacks and breaches of peace on the part of the patient. There is clearly something behind mere alcoholism in the entire story of this state ward. On the whole, the periodicity of the attacks is equally consistent with the picture presented by numerous feeble-minded persons, and the institutions that had to deal with Q. regarded him rather as epileptoid. There seems to be evidence of actual intellectual defect. Accordingly it seems wiser to consider the case of Julius Q. one of feeblemindedness, possibly of the moron group. We should then consider the epileptoid features as part and parcel of the feeblemindedness. We should consider the intellectual defect a part of the process; and the uncontrollable impulse to drink, the sudden violent attacks, and the cruelty in childhood would then be regarded as merely symptomatic of the feeblemindedness. It seems clear that either mental tests by the regimental surgeon or an examination of the patient’s previous history would tend to exclude such a patient from the army.

How can a rifleman be an imbecile?

Case 45. (Kastan, January, 1916.)

Anton K. was down in the list as “missing.” He was found at home. He said his feet had become sore from the marching. He had lain down and become unconscious. Coming to his senses, he was possessed only of trousers and a shirt but he got a civilian suit in a village. He had gone home part way by train, part way on foot. It seems that he did not tell his father any details about his coming back although he expressly denied deserting.

It seems no mental weakness had been noticed in the army. It had been observed, however, that after seeing the first corpses he was deeply impressed and did not want to see any more. On examination in the hospital he gave the impression of indifference and low spirits. He had to be urged to eat and work. No great amount of intelligence defect could be determined, though his knowledge and capacity were below the average. The physician examining him thought his depression was either caused by or increased by his imprisonment; but this examiner thought that the protection of Section 51 did not extend to the patient at the time of his desertion. The examiner thought that an examination by a psychiatrist was not necessary, though both judge and prosecutor urged it.

When examined in the clinic, he seemed to be disoriented for time. He claimed to have been able to stand the shooting and the sight of the corpses. After becoming unconscious, he had wakened and eaten cucumbers and carrots in the fields, wandering on for a period of three or four weeks, until he came to a place where he had formerly worked. The reason he had thrown away his uniform was because Russians had been about. He had not known that it was his duty to report to the army again.

It was found that the patient’s father was poorly developed as to mind, that his brother was subject to periodic mental disturbance so that he had to be watched. It was found also that K. himself had had a similar mental disturbance, lasting a week, two years before. Moreover he was not considered mentally right in his home town. In fact, no one there wondered really at his desertion because he was so stupid. His school work had been poor and limited.

He himself said that his people were of sound mind; that during school days he had felt bad in his head, once running into the woods after being told something. He was able to give the names of his former superiors. His calculations were only partly correct. He was poor at reasoning and at simple distinctions; for example, asked the difference between a bird and a butterfly, he replied that a butterfly was a bird too. He did not know the difference between a river and a lake. He thought Russia, England, and Austria were the enemies of Germany.

He sat about or lay on the floor, motionless and indifferent, with a newspaper stuffed into his trousers, unoccupied although saying that he wanted to work, and even allowing his fingers to be burned by cigarettes he was smoking.

He was tried once more and the first medical expert still adhered to his former opinion, pointing out that K. was a rifleman and that only an intelligent man could be a rifleman. The court, however, accepted Kastan’s opinion and granted K. the protection of Section 51.