Volunteer: Dementia praecox.
Case 154. (Haury, 1915.)
N. enlisted voluntarily for three years in the Infantry, September 10, 1912, and immediately gave indications of abnormal mentality by his conduct. He made mistakes all day long. At reveille he had to be called several times, and when his corporal objected, he said, “It is cold; I don’t see why I must get up; I am free to remain in bed until 8 o’clock.” In reply to his corporal’s remonstrance about his continued latenesses, he once said, “I can’t get ready; I have no mirror to wash before.” This was rather surprising conduct from an intelligent printer-engraver, who had lived and gone to school in the town of Lyons. He was unable to make his own bed or to perform the simplest of exercises in the manual of arms. He was violent on several occasions, once attacking a comrade who had given him an order, and again when another had taken his place in the line. His reasoning faculties were those of a young child. He continued doing these strange things, and was finally discharged.
Re dementia praecox amongst American troops, Edgar King, before the war, concluded that some 5 to 8 per cent of the American cases of mental disease in the army belonged to the paranoid form of dementia praecox. King lays special emphasis upon dementia praecox, finding that more than one-half of the army admissions for mental disease belong to this group. He calls attention to the number of desertions and undesirables in the group. He found that 70 per cent of the cases showed some heredity.