Shell-shock and other neuropsychiatric problems

Chapter 49: Case 39. (Pruvost, 1915.)

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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.

An imbecile who walked lame.

Case 39. (Pruvost, 1915.)

A soldier, 20, eight days after being called to the colors, complained of pain in the knee and hip. He was observed for 18 days in hospital and then sent back to his company; but he continued to complain of the pains, and the regimental surgeon sent him to a neurological center where the joints were found to be normal and where no sensory, motor or reflex disorders were in evidence. The man continued to walk lame and insisted he could not get about without a cane. He also complained of his mouth and his belly and, though he was very ruddy, said he was á bout de forces.

It was a question of simulation. The man, however, was a feebleminded person who could not read, write or calculate. He was invalided as such.