The fugue of an adjutant who left his regimental relief post at Palameix Farm and was found several days later with his family at Castelsarrasin, was reconstructed from partial records as follows:
November 27, 1914, after a night in the trenches, when two shells burst near him, the adjutant turned up at the relief post with wild eyes and a complaint of fatigue, and of an old wound and headaches. The wound he had gotten in a fight which gained him his grade of adjutant. The physician prescribed rest. He sat down by the stove, silent and dejected, and at about four o’clock, in the presence of the medical assistant, made preparations to go, leaving sack and saber behind, but taking outer garments and revolver case. On the way from the farm, he met comrades and told them he had been evacuated to his dépôt on the colonel’s order, and walked with them, Indian file, in the midst of falling shells, the others talking but the adjutant himself silent. At nightfall, he said, “Good evening,” and parted from them. Of his further course to his home, all recollection was lost by the adjutant; in fact, he did not remember anything beyond the Palameix Farm, where he had seen a comrade wounded in the head. He got home November 29th, at eight in the morning. He had most of his money with him, having traveled by train some distance without a ticket; moreover, without asking for a ticket, and without having eaten. When the ticketman in his home town asked him whether he was back from the war, he looked at him vaguely and went out without replying; nor did he reply to a newspaper man on the road home. This was the more strange as he was ordinarily an affable person.
He had a convulsive crisis at home, after which he was exhausted and apparently unable to move or reply. A physician said that he had had a cerebral shock. When the police arrived, two hours later, he was apparently delirious, saying such things as, “The Christians want to shoot me but I know the rules! Come, boys, stay in the trenches!” “There are two more dead ones!” etc. During the day he recovered consciousness and was greatly disturbed at his military crime.
In point of fact, he had had, at the age of 17, analogous crises, as was certified by Régis, who had cared for him from 1907 to 1909 for hysteria with sudden somnambulistic attacks and amnesia.
While in prison after his arrest, he also had hysterical crises with agitation, flushed face, hard attempts to vomit, respiratory disorder due to interference in the throat (globus hystericus), and delirious phenomena (“Germans had followed him home”).
After his birth his mother had had two miscarriages and a stillborn child. The adjutant was declared irresponsible and acquitted. This is apparently an instance of hysteria without stigmata.
Hysterical Adventist.
Case 172. (De la Motte, August, 1915.)
An engineer, 31, in the Landwehr at the outset of the campaign, was first put on sentry service in Berlin on the ground that he was an Adventist. He was later put into the military service and had difficulty because he did not want to serve on Sunday. He was shoved from one company to another. He refused to be inoculated and was arrested therefor. In the prison, he began to hear God’s voice calling to him distinctly to tell his fellow-men that the end of this was going to be the end of all things. Back in the barracks, he again heard a voice—“Come forth!”—“Go!” He went! He had his revelations then published in the form of tracts, and held Bible readings day and night among his friends in Bremen—looking for the signs of the times in the Bible sayings. One of his fellow Adventists finally warned the police, and the military authorities put him under psychiatric observation. He proved to have numerous stigmata of hysteria. He talked freely about his visions, and was aware that he was punishable.