Shell-shock; minor injuries: Somnambulistic “carrying on”; fatigueability, physical and mental.
Case 362. (Donath, July, 1915.)
A lieutenant of infantry, 31, threw himself down on the earth September 9, 1914, as a shell was passing over him. The shell exploded and seriously injured a soldier one meter away. The lieutenant got up and ran for cover about twenty meters distant. Only six and a half hours later did he perceive that there was a small skin lesion between his thumb and index finger, caused by a shell fragment, as well as a superficial burn on his right temple. Neither wound bled or had to be dressed. He carried on, aware that they were marching toward the River D.; but only two or three days later did he find they had already marched to the other side of K., had rested there and spent the night in various places in between. During this whole period the lieutenant led his battalion and held a piece of woods without anyone’s noticing anything striking about him. These dazed states were twice repeated, for periods of ten and twenty-four hours respectively, and finally he was brought behind the firing lines unconscious.
The physician found him to be in a state of exhaustion, pulse 108, and had him brought to the nearest station. There Donath found increased tendon reflexes, some dermatographia and increased fatigueability of mind and body. He was especially fatigued by walking, though he had always been a good mountain climber. He was now unable to concentrate on reading, writing or calculating, though he had been accustomed to dictate letters and calculations in his official work in peace times. He had seizures of crying and trembling on September 10 and October 27, both quieted by bromides. There was diminution of sexual power.
Rest, lukewarm baths, cold compresses to the head, and psychotherapy improved his status rapidly.
This patient had never been epileptic or hysterical, subject to dazed states of any sort, was weak, delicate and anemic (three sisters leukemic), but had before the war been well.
Emotion of captain who saw men burned by bomb: Stupor “as if dead”; awakening “as if a German prisoner.” Recovery.