Anticipation of warfare: Hysterical blindness.
Case 297. (Forsyth, December, 1915.)
Anticipation of warfare may provoke a neurosis as in a case of Forsyth’s. The man went blind training in England.
It seems that four months before, while mounting sentry at night, marauding gypsies had felled him by a blow on the head from behind. He had returned to duty after a day or two and was now expecting to be moved to France. He said that while sitting with a friend, he began to feel giddy, turned a somersault, and fell unconscious; and that on coming to, his mind was clear but everything was dark. For ten days he had been blind, although once he could see his parents, who visited him in hospital, almost clearly. His appearance under examination strongly recalled that of a blind man. He was induced to read some large print, then smaller print, and finally very small print. He then lapsed into blindness.
He remembered that before enlisting, he had trained in a smithy, and heard that blacksmiths often went blind at the forge.