Case 466. (Gilles, April, 1917.)
An infantryman, 28, had an equinovarus, for which he was evacuated, hospitalized, given treatment, sent home for convalescence, and declared unfit for service. He was, however, sent back to the front, and on arrival, went lame; whereupon the regimental surgeon sent him to a nerve center. The equinovarus was there but it was nothing but a simple contracture without pain, atrophy, sensory, reflex, electrical, or X-ray disorders.
The abductor muscles were stimulated by electricity and the foot straightened. He was kept under observation for a time, was lame no longer, and was sent back to his regiment.
However, sometime later he was evacuated again to the same neurological center, stating that he did not know why. There was no longer any varus or anything abnormal. The rascal had enjoyed the game of going lame and had prevailed upon his officers to evacuate him. He then saw that he was found out and pretended that he had been forcibly evacuated.
Mother love and jaundice.
Case 467. (Briand and Haury, January, 1916.)
A soldier, 19½, entered the central psychiatric service at Val-de-Grâce, having been evacuated from a hospital in Paris, suspect of having brought about a picric acid jaundice. He had been undergoing treatment in this hospital, when the physician who had isolated him found that he was getting picric acid in packages secreted in his képi.
It seems that the soldier lived with his mother, and enlisted when he was not yet 18. He proved to be as good a soldier as he was workman, and came through the campaign without wound or disease. Accordingly, in December, 1915, he got a six-day leave. His mother, who loved him well, and of whom he was the sole support, had much regretted his enlisting. She was sick with some stomach disease and, after he enlisted, she told everybody that she was going to die and that it was his fault. So, when he came on leave the next day, she asked him to take a powder so he might stay a fortnight. She did not tell him the name of the drug; only told him how to take it in a small paper, swallowing it with a little water. She said he would become yellow and that he would get a supplementary leave. Three days after his return to the front, the boy took three of the ten powders; took the same number three or four days later; and the others five or six days later. He soon had jaundice with colic and diarrhea, and apparently was exempted from service for a few days. He had returned to the front hardly a month when his mother died and the boy got another six-day leave for the funeral. He took ten fresh doses of picric acid while at Paris, and was put into hospital by a physician without suspicion. His relatives thought he was suffering from a recurrent jaundice. When the story was told, the boy confessed to the family, and said that he had taken the drug in the first place only to please his mother. It is harder to explain the second trial, since he talked about the compassion and sense of obedience he felt to his dead mother. It is probable that he simply wanted a prolonged leave at Paris.