Shell-shock and other neuropsychiatric problems

Chapter 426: Case 397. (Smyly, April, 1917.)

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About This Book

The work assembles nearly six hundred clinical case histories drawn from wartime medical literature to document combat-related neuropsychiatric disorders. It presents concise case protocols illustrating varied symptom patterns, diagnostic dilemmas, malingering and simulation, therapeutic interventions, and treatment outcomes, and includes bibliographic references and introductory commentary. Sections juxtapose cases to illuminate contested diagnoses and to inform postwar rehabilitation and mental-hygiene efforts, aiming to provide clinicians and reconstruction workers with detailed clinical material for recognizing, classifying, and managing neuropsychiatric consequences of war.

Violence to back: Dysbasia. Antebellum injury.

Case 397. (Smyly, April, 1917.)

A man (also injured in 1906 by the fall of a heavy weight on his back) went to France in 1914 as a soldier, and eight months later was hurled into a shell hole so that his back struck the edge. He was rendered unconscious. Upon recovery of consciousness, the right leg was found to be swollen, and there were severe pains in the legs and back.

Upon return home the patient went from one hospital to another, for the most part unable to walk, suffering from agonizing pain in head and eyes. Insomnia and waking dreams.

He was able to bring himself to an upright position and to rush a few steps. He has now acquired considerable control of the feet by the aid of crutches. Insomnia persisted.