Case 43. (Briand, February, 1915.)
A soldier in the Territorial Army, 40, appeared before the examining board in a depressed, dejected-looking state, speaking slowly but collectedly and lucidly. Mobilized the second day, this man was much afraid that he could not get through the marches, and asked for a special examination to determine whether his feet did not make him unsuitable for fatigue. Two physicians thought he was unsuitable for marching, and another thought he put it on. A trial march was not executed well. He was kept in barracks but jumped the wall, put on civilian clothes, and made off for Paris. But a relative, warned by his wife, finally got him to go to the authorities. He was told that he ought to return in the afternoon, when suddenly he was arrested.
It seems that the man relied on the opinion of the two physicians and discounted that of the third. He thought himself the victim of an injustice, and not knowing how to get on, it occurred to him that he would abandon the regiment and get out of the difficulty. It was without resistance, however, that he gave himself up as a prisoner. This fugue was neither unconscious nor amnestic, nor was it due to an irresistible impulse; nor can we say that it was due to a genuine intellectual disorder. It was an emotional fugue, and partly due to the man’s long-standing depression. It seems that he had inherited this character from his father. He was below normal intelligence, had a very poor education, lost his wife, and grew more and more sombre. He married again, but this time a neuropath. He began to be preoccupied with his health and he had even some ideas of suicide. At the time of his leaving the regiment, he had passed through a phase of depression of about 6 months’ duration, and at this time had a number of hypochondriacal ideas with poor appetite and loss of weight.
Diagnostic dispute between regimental surgeon and alienist.
Case 44. (Kastan, January, 1916.)
Julius Q. was sent on guard April 14, 1915, with orders to remain there. While on guard he made a noise and made a movement as if to take a knife from his pocket. Ordered to empty his pockets, he attacked the other guards. The witnesses said that he was drunk.
Upon examination, it appeared that he had recognized and called by name those present in the guardhouse, despite his supposed intoxication. There were red spots on the skin and a certain amount of analgesia. His powers of computation and reasoning were poor. He was unable to explain the meaning of a picture shown him. He maintained that he had an indomitable desire for drink. A diagnostic draught of alcohol yielded no reaction. Upon dismissal, he got drunk at once again, and had again to be imprisoned in a state of excitement. What the outcome in this case was is not stated by Kastan.
The previous history seems important. Julius Q. had been a state ward. He had escaped several times from the institution but had always to be brought back again because he could not be trained at home. He had once attacked a supervisor in the state institution with a knife. It seems that he had at this time been drunk, having been brought back drunk to the institution.
Two years before the war he had been taken to the Breslau Hospital for the Insane on account of fits of insanity. In 1913 he had been a patient in Wuhlgarten on similar grounds. The diagnosis there had been epileptoid degeneration, psychopathic constitution, imbecility, or epilepsy(?). He had been convicted of crimes a number of times and put to labor. He had been given to cruelty in childhood.