Influence of war experience on the content of hallucinations and delusions.
Case 157. (Gerver, 1915.)
In one of the divisional field hospitals Gerver examined a patient with a very vivid paranoic condition. The following were some of his hallucinations and delusions:
The patient asserted that everyone considered him a spy. Voices continually told him: “You are a spy.” “What? Spy? Caught? What?” “You will be shot by the Germans for espionage.” About three months before his present trouble, the patient had been wounded in left shoulder by a fragment of a large projectile. The wound healed and examination showed a big scar with attachments to the bone. The patient asserted that now he could not touch anything with his left hand, as there immediately go from it “some currents” to the Germans in the trenches and they at once begin shooting at the Russian position. Later, the patient could not even look in the direction of the German front, for all he had to do was to throw a glance in that direction and the Germans would at once begin a bombardment.
All these phenomena he explained as being due to the fact that the fragments of the large projectile which entered his shoulder were poisoned and charmed. Through these fragments there went currents from his hands to the Germans. The patient always supported his left hand with his right, in order not to touch anything with it. He slept only on his right side, so as not to touch the bed or floor with his left hand. During the examination and conversation the patient tried always to look downwards, so as not to throw a chance look in the direction of the German front and call out their fire.