He could not remember how and when he had come into the hospital. Notwithstanding all these later recollections, he still imagined from time to time that he had brought the gold with him into the hospital.
Surgeon General von Schmetter reported further the case of a cavalryman of the King’s regiment who, like many others, had returned from Russia in an imbecile condition.
He spoke alternately, or mixed up, Polish, Russian, and German; he had to be fed like a child, could not remember his name or the name of his native place, and died from exhaustion eight days after admittance into the hospital.
On necropsy of the quite wrinkled body, the cerebral vessels were found full of blood, the ventricles full of serum. On the surface of the brain between the latter and the meninges were found several larger and smaller sacs filled with lymph, the spinal canal full of serum; in the spinal cord plain traces of inflammation. In the lungs there was much dark coagulated blood, and likewise in the vena cava; in the stomach and intestines, many cicatrices; the mesenteric glands and pancreas were much degenerated and filled with pus; the rectum showed many cicatrices and several ulcers.
In the hospital of Mergentheim eight necropsies were held on corpses of soldiers who had returned mentally affected in consequence of exposure to extreme cold. Similar conditions had presented themselves in all these cases.
Surgeon General von Kohlreuter attended an infantry officer who had arrived at Inorawlow, in Poland, where the remainder of the Wuerttembergian corps had rallied. He showed no special sickness, had no fever, but fell into complete apathy. For a long time he had great weakness of mind, but recovered completely in the end.
Of another patient of this kind, an officer of the general staff, who had been treated after that fatal retreat from Moscow, von Kohlreuter reports that later on he recovered completely from the mental derangement, but died on his return, near the borders of Saxony, from exhaustion.
An infantry officer became mentally deranged sometime after he had returned to his home; it took a long time, but finally he recovered without special medical aid.
Recovery of such cases was accomplished by time, a mild climate, by social intercourse, and good nourishment; many of them, on the way through Germany and before they reached their own home, had completely regained their mental faculties, and only in a small number of cases did it take a long period of time and medication before recovery was assured.
The effect of intense cold on wounds was very severe: Violent inflammation, enormous swelling, gangraene—the latter often due to the impossibility of proper care. Larger wounds sometimes could not be dressed on the retreat, and while the cold weather lasted gangraene and death followed in quick succession. The effect of cold was noticed also on wounds which had healed and cicatrized.