Desertion: Schizophrenic-looking behavior. Adjudged responsible.
Case 150. (Consiglio, 1915.)
An Italian private in the artillery, a telephone operator at the front, came up for desertion in the face of the enemy. It seems that he had often left his post, going off for a number of hours and drinking. At last he lost his position in the battery, went off and got drunk again, and was removed to a hospital and held as a neurasthenic and psychopathic patient. At the territorial hospital he was regarded as a melancholic. He still showed signs of alcoholism, was hallucinated, did a number of peculiar things, was impatient of medical examination, and was given a furlough of two months for convalescence. He apparently grew somewhat better in his father’s home, but went to a physician there and presented his certificate as a mental case. His behavior was so peculiar on subsequent arrest that he was sent for observation to Consiglio.
It appeared that he had been in military service from August, 1912, and had been imprisoned for a space of eight weeks for disobedience when he had been in military service for six months. He had been punished in the army nine times, once being given 70 days for lying. He was regarded as an undisciplined soldier but not as a nervous or mental case.
At hospital he was in a semi-stupor, claimed that he was forgetful, was apathetic concerning home and relatives, complained of pain in the head, and altogether preserved a strange and stolid attitude with occasional gestures, mimicry, and stereotyped reactions. As he had come to be operated upon, he looked about for the cannon that was to be used in the operation. Accordingly the question of dementia praecox might well be raised.
His indifference turned out actually to be assumed and pretentious. He preserved throughout an arrogant tone, and there were features in his voice that strongly suggested simulation.
According to Consiglio, we are dealing with an epileptic degenerate, addicted to alcohol, lying, and immorality. The question concerning responsibility was settled in the affirmative. Of course, it might be thought that the case was one of pathological intoxication, in which case, the man might be regarded as only semi-responsible. However, the phenomena of simulation, not merely in the observation hospital but also in the period of apparent depression and strange conduct immediately following his arrest for desertion, led to the decision that the man, despite his nervous abnormality, was responsible for his act. He was condemned to 20 years in prison.
Re dementia praecox, Buscaino and Coppola found a number of cases of dementia praecox amongst soldiers admitted to hospital during the period of mobilization; cases amongst men who had not yet been at the front. These mobilization cases, in fact, were as a rule either cases of dementia praecox, cases of a psychopathic constitution, or cases of alcoholism.