Neurasthenia (monosymptomatic: Sympathy with the enemy).
Case 181. (Steiner, October, 1915.)
A non-commissioned reserve officer, 26, in civil life a merchant, had a strong hereditary taint, having been also in peace times very nervous and on that account obliged to give up his studies. At the age of 14, he had seen a man fall down from a roof and was much excited about it.
At the beginning of mobilization he suffered a functional aphonia for a few days. He could not let his men shoot at the enemy because of an idea that occurred forcibly to him: that the enemy’s soldiers had wives and children! He felt badly on this account. Later he had a constant taste of blood in his mouth and a smell of corpses in his nose. Toward nightfall all these symptoms would change for the worse, and the symptoms would become especially bad whenever he had anything to do with the wounded. He tended to weep much and was easily frightened and had also various physical symptoms of neurasthenia.
Re the amazing sympathy with the enemy, see Case 229 (Binswanger) and Case 554 (Arinstein), in which chloroform lifted from a German and a Russian consciousness respectively opposite emotional tendencies.