At hospital he was markedly depressed and cried very readily on being spoken to. The tympanic membrane had lost its sensitiveness to pain. As for the speech mechanism, the larynx proved negative. All the movements of the soft palate, tongue and vocal cords could be normally performed. The tongue was anesthetic to touch, but the taste function was perfectly preserved. The cheeks and various parts of the face were also anesthetic to touch, and the lobules of the ears could even be pierced with large pins without reaction by the patient.
He tried to pronounce labials, opening and closing the lips rapidly; but the expiratory movement was too weak, and not a single sound was made.
At the patient’s request, he was chloroformed. During a very violent excited phase, he did emit groaning sounds. The narcosis, however, did not put an entire stop to the mutism, since only a few inarticulate sounds could be emitted, and those only after great efforts. Curiously enough, however, the chloroform narcosis had caused the deafness to disappear entirely. Another narcosis upon the patient’s insistent request was given but remained without results, and at the time of report, the patient though cheerful and intelligent-looking, was still mute.
Treatment of two cases.
Cases 558 and 559. (Smyly, April, 1917.)
A soldier was out with a bombing party when a shell burst. He came to in a casualty clearing station, and was sent on to Salonica, deaf, dumb and jumpy. Two months later, an attempt at hypnosis failed; faradism of vocal cords failed.
The patient dreamed one night that if he vomited he could speak. Ipecac produced vomiting without speech. The patient, however, wanted a second dose, and while waiting for it, uttered an exclamation, which he did not himself hear, however. In the meantime, Dr. Smyly had been trying to hypnotize a second soldier, dumb but not deaf. This man’s dug-out had been blown in on him seven months before, whereupon the patient became very shaky, but did not become sick for a week. He was then sent to hospital, and his voice gradually disappeared. He suffered from violent headache and spasmodic movements of the arms and legs. Suggestion seemed powerless, and ether was unexpectedly given to the patient. While going under the ether, he said, “Oh dear, oh dear” several times indistinctly. It seems that another physician had already tried to cure the patient of dumbness by removing teeth without an anesthetic.
While this therapy was proceeding with the dumb man, the deaf-and-dumb man disappeared. It seems that the smell of the gas had caused him to take refuge on an outhouse-roof. The next day he had recovered voice and hearing completely, partly from shock and partly through suggestion.