A chasseur, buried June 24, 1916, had a number of general symptoms, apparently got well and was given seven days’ leave at home. On the way he felt abdominal pain which he thought due to the jolting of the car. Suddenly he felt his legs trembling on extension. He left the train and went into a hospital where a diagnosis of radicular and spinal lesions was made. Two months later he was sent to Claude who found that he could walk only with knees flexed. If he was requested to stand up and extend his legs on the thigh, a trembling set in suggestive of an epileptoid trepidation. Even in the horizontal position the same clonic trepidation occurred which only stopped if the patient flexed his legs on the thighs.
However, no sign of organic lesion could be found. There was an analgesia limited to the ankles. Psycho-physiotherapeutic treatment was unavailing. January 28, 1917, the stovaine injection method was tried. After anesthesia had set in, it was found possible still to produce the spastic state by extending the legs; but a half hour after injection the spastic state could no longer be produced. The patient was shown that the trepidation was abolished. During the period of return of sensibility, the legs were constantly moved and the patient constantly told to make movements himself. He was convinced of his power. There was no longer any clonus. The patient remained all day in bed without epileptiform movements. Next day he complained merely of weakness in the legs and was got to walk without having convulsive tremors. During the next few days he began to walk with a cane, later without support, and there were no more contractions except transiently in the left leg if the patient walked a little too long. He left the hospital cured.
Shell-shock deafmutism: Psychic treatment.
Case 562. (Bellin and Vernet, January, 1917.)
A soldier in a colonial regiment was sent, August 14, 1916, to an evacuation post with a diagnosis “deafness following shell-shock, unfit for service.” The patient asked that he be spoken to very loud because he could not hear, and he himself spoke in whispers. He kept watching his interlocutors’ lips and moved his own as if to pronounce the words.
A shell had burst nearby fourteen months before in June, 1915. After being in several hospitals, he was sent to an oto-rhino-laryngological service where he had his hearing reëducated and was taught lip reading. It was soon perceived that he could hear without lip reading and he was assured that he could be cured at once, but naturally he was not convinced. He produced a carefully filed paper stating “atrophic ozenous rhinitis, deafness from labyrinthine shock following shell explosion, hearing diminished 60 per cent right, 30 per cent left.”
However, energetic psychotherapy was started and in the absence of electricity, subcutaneous injections of ether were given. Such patients had always been cured, and a drug injected under the skin, not dangerous but extremely painful would cure him! This treatment was carried out in a dugout near enough to the lines to be daily “potted.” The patient was left for a space to reflect, and he finally accepted the chance of cure. He was exhorted to stand courageously the pain and to breathe deeply and to repeat a word more and more loudly. Finally he was made to speak normally and eventually to cry out loudly. He now felt much astonished, and in his astonishment forgot his deafness. He said that he had never spoken or heard since the accident, that he had been a deafmute from the first month of his illness, and that for the last three months he had been able to speak only in a whispered voice.
He should have been watched a few days to confirm the cure. This was impossible in the crowded dugout and no risk could be run of his escaping. Kept over night he was found next day unable to hear and talking in the same voice as before.
He was now found to be either an exaggerator or a simulator. He was given a half hour to exercise his voice in and told that he must succeed unless he was a simulator. At the end of half an hour it was found that he had skipped. He was sent back by the division surgeon with orders to send him to the otological service for inquiry. The otological service found an atrophic ozenous rhinitis, a normal larynx, perfect audition. He was given a psychic X-raying and a few electric sparks were also drawn from his neck. He then began to talk in a loud voice and to hear normally. August 30, he was sent out completely cured and rejoined his regiment.