Struck by rifle butt: blindness of an eye already poor. Shell-shock: dysbasia. Hypnosis.
Case 537. (Ormond, May, 1915.)
A lieutenant, 20 years, managed to get into the army despite the fact that he had never been able to use his left eye, owing to hypermetropia and amblyopia. He was hit on the left side of the head by a rifle butt, and knocked unconscious, in June. On recovering, he found he could not see at all with his left eye, which he had never been in the habit of using. August 10, he was wounded slightly in the left thigh. August 23, while still on duty, with the wound not completely healed, he was blown up by a shell. He regained consciousness on a stretcher. Feeling the pain in his old wound, he thought he should be unable to walk.
On shipboard, he found that he actually could not walk. He kept his left eye covered by a shade on account of headache that would follow exposure to light. He was much excited and had bad nightmares.
After the journey home from the Dardanelles, it was found that the left eye was normal except for the hypermetropia, despite the fact that he was quite unable to see with the eye.
He was hypnotized four times, losing the nightmares and much of the headache after the first treatment; the eye pain on exposure to light, after the second treatment; and the blindness, after the third treatment. He was now able to see with his left eye as well as before he was struck. He was still unable to walk without crutches. Hypnotized the fourth time, he was told he could walk, and did so.
For hypnotic treatment of blindness, see under Case 521. Re blindness of eye already poor, see Cases 294-301 (296 and 297 eye cases). Ormond states that in the treatment of Shell-shock blindness, he first tried rest, tonics, cutting off tobacco, confinement in bed, isolation, persuasion, encouragement, counter-irritation; but that all these measures failed. Suggestion and hypnosis succeeded.