“Two days later, he seemed normal and said that he could have spoken on the second day, but that his eyes and ears had begun to swim, that he had felt dizzy, and was afraid to talk. He did not want to be sent back to the trenches. There had been severe shelling. He had lost consciousness until he awoke in a hospital at Y—. He recalled, little by little, how he had been taken back by a corporal to a cellar. He said he wanted to go back, but wanted a rest first. He went back to his unit and was reported as having done well for four months.”
There was a certain suggestion of malingering about the admission of the lad that he could have spoken before he was induced to do so. According to Lt.-Col. Myers, a number of patients upon recovery of speech are apt falsely to believe that they have been malingering. Functional disorders may simulate malingering.
Lannois and Chavanne warn against the suggestions given to malingerers and to hysterics by the statements on the tickets of admission borne by the patients for transfer, e.g. “incurable deafness.” These authors found 11 per cent malingerers amongst 262 cases of labyrinthine shock.
Simulation of deafmutism.
Case 465. (Gradenigo, March, 1917.)
A soldier in the mountain artillery acted like a deafmute. He was unable to read or write. It was reported that he had been wounded, but no evidence of wound could be found. The man had a low forehead and a furtive glance, his whole impression being that of a criminal.
The only evidence of disease found was inflammation with perforation of the tympanic membrane of the left ear. Deep in the left auditory meatus was found a grain of crushed oats! The man’s speech difficulty was of a stuttering nature, but he stuttered in a different way at every test. He was unwilling to be narcotized. Finally by a process of scolding and cajoling, the man was made to confess that he could both hear and speak well. The peculiar stuttering early led to the diagnosis of simulation, but the fact that the tympanic membrane was not anesthetic, and that there was no anesthetic zone in the body strengthened the suspicion—to say nothing of the refusal of narcosis and the general behavior of the somewhat criminal-looking soldier.
A lame rascal.