Case 148. (Kastan, January, 1916.)
A German private, called to the colors, was supposed to take his civilian clothes to the post office along with his comrades on March 21, 1915. He did not get his package ready in time and was ordered to go with another troop. At an opportune moment, he left the barracks with the package of clothing. When later arrested, he said that he had gone by railroad to Dirschau; then he had visited Berlin. After this, he had walked to Bromberg, Schneidemühl, and Landsberg.
At last he had ridden back to Küstrin. At Küstrin some children told a railway official that the man was making drawings. There was a petroleum tank near by. Accordingly, he was arrested as a possible spy. He claimed that he was not a soldier.
In the clinic, he looked dull and smiled a good deal. It seems that, before being called to the colors, he had been very angry with his wife and had even threatened her. He now explained this anger as his wife’s fault. She had attacked him, he said. He said that he sometimes had attacks of weakness, which used to last two days at a time, but they had recently lasted for a shorter time. He said that his thoughts always wanted to be somewhere else. In fact, he had not performed military duty. His uniform had been gotten for him, but he had had no further orders. Sometimes in a fever or dream his head seemed to be as big as a room, as if there were no space for it. There was an itching in his legs, he said, which often fell asleep so he could not stand on them. He had had syphilis seven years before, after which he had been hoarse, forgetful, and anxious.
Examination showed perceptive power and knowledge to be good. He played the violin, but always the same tunes. He said that he had not worked in Berlin during the winter of 1914. He spoke as if he had been in another sanitarium, where he did nothing but dream by himself, taking no interest in things, and lying indifferently, with a blanket over him.
He said that when he received the uniform he had a longing for clean underclothes. Requested to explain the meaning of the uniform, he remarked: “Why, many have these things on.”
Re dementia praecox, Lépine states that in the French army instances of dementia praecox have been numerous in the interior, both at the time of mobilization and at the time of calling out sundry new classes. He notes that the courtmartial and invaliding experts have neither the leisure nor the experience necessary to keep these men from going into the army. The somewhat frequent remissions in dementia praecox make the task all the more difficult. To be sure, the stuporous and catatonic cases are not very much in evidence in the army; when such cases do occur, it is easy enough to evacuate the patients to a hospital for observation. Far more troublesome are cases of a less advanced or milder nature. Here are cases in which judgment is deficient, and in which quite unsystematic, incoherent, and transient delusional ideas occur. The patient looks quite normal to the non-psychiatric expert. Something odd happens which quite suddenly reveals the delusional ideas. For example, there is a fugue, or else the soldier goes to his superior and aggressively chides him for having troubled him the night before. These particular psychopaths are among the most dangerous to be found in the army.
Fugue, catatonic.