SHELL-SHOCK PSEUDOPARESIS (non-syphilitic). Recovery.
Case 26. (Pitres and Marchand, November, 1916.)
June 19, 1915, a shell exploded some distance from Lieutenant R. He remembers the gaseous smell, the bursting of several shells nearby and a sensation of being lifted into the air. When he recovered consciousness, he was in hospital at Paris-Plage, covered with bruises and scratches. They told him he had been delirious and had vomited and spat blood.
June 24, his wife came to see him, but this visit he could not remember. Nor could his wife at first recognize him, he was so thin. He roused a few moments and recognized his wife, but relapsed into torpor again. Speech was difficult and ideas confused.
A few days later he was able to rise; but his mental status grew worse, especially as to speech and writing, the latter quite illegible. There was insomnia, or, if he slept, war dreams.
August 7, he began a period of five months’ convalescence passed with his family, depressed, given to spells of weeping, confined to bed or couch, unable to “find words,” conscious of his state and troubled about it, speaking of nothing but the war, and afraid to go out for fear of ambuscade. There was at first a slight lameness of the right leg. Although he could walk, he felt pain in the knee on flexing the right leg on the thigh. He walked holding this leg in extension.
On going back to the colors, he was immediately evacuated to the Centre Neurologique at Bordeaux, January 20, 1916.
Examination found a bored, impatient, irritated man, vexed that a man who was not sick should be sent up “comme fou.”
Omitting negative details, neurological examination showed slight lameness as above, body stiff and movements jerky, difficult, unsteady gait. The lieutenant could stand for some time on either leg. Tongue and face tremulous during speech. Limbs moderately tremulous, especially in the performance of test movements.