Mortar explosion: Hysterical deafness.
Case 266. (Lattes and Goria, March, 1917.)
A young soldier, a peasant, fell down unconscious when a mortar exploded killing several men. He regained consciousness a few hours later but was deaf on both sides. He looked dazed and did not spontaneously move, having to be called for meals. Communicating by writing, he could tell all the details of the accident.
The laryngeal and corneal reflexes were absent and there was a hyperesthesia and hypalgesia of the right side of the body. No anatomical basis for the deafness could be determined.
Shell explosion: Onomatopoeic noises in ears.
Case 267. (Ballet, 1914.)
A Zouave was with his squad at Tracy-les-Val Church, October, 1914, when the roof was burst in by a shell which wounded four men. The Zouave felt a strange emotion with trembling, and whistling in his ears. However, he helped his comrades into a neighboring car. From that time forward, he was very emotional, and felt noises in his ear, sometimes humming, sometimes whistling. At Compiègne Hospital a lumbar puncture was made, perhaps with a therapeutic purpose, but this gave no results. The noises were heard as a whistling pseeee followed by a boom,—an onomatopoeia recalling the whistling and bursting of the bomb. There was, in short, no labyrinthine lesion, but merely an obsessive mental phenomenon. There were no ear lesions objectively. The man developed a stuttering some time after the humming and whistling in the ear.
Injury of eyes by gravel from shell-burst: Photophobia, blepharospasm, facial anesthesia, pains.