Doctor Barstead nodded his head slowly.
“That is quite true. Compression paraplegia of the spinal cord may follow a dislocation or injury, but the lesion thus produced is of the focal transverse type. Osteitis or caries of the vertebræ—what we commonly call Pott’s disease—is usually of tubercular origin; and this tuberculosis of the spine occurs most frequently in children. Often it exists at birth. True, an injury may precede the onset by determining the site of infection or exciting a latent focus; and this fact no doubt gives rise to the belief that the injury itself produces the disease. But both Schmaus and Horsley have exposed the true pathological anatomy of spinal caries. Drukker’s deformity is unquestionably of tubercular origin. Even his curvature is of the marked rounded type, denoting an extensive involvement of vertebræ; and there is no scholiosis whatever. Moreover, he has all the local symptoms of osteitis.”
“You have, of course, explained the situation to Mrs. Drukker.”
“On many occasions. But I have had no success. The fact is, a terrific instinct of perverted martyrdom bids her cling to the notion that she is responsible for her son’s condition. This erroneous idea has become an idée fixe with her. It constitutes her entire mental outlook, and gives meaning to the life of service and sacrifice she had lived for forty years.”
“To what extent,” asked Vance, “would you say this psychoneurosis has affected her mind?”
“That would be difficult to say; and it is not a question I would care to discuss. I may say this, however: she is undoubtedly morbid; and her values have become distorted. At times there have been—I tell you this in strictest confidence—signs of marked hallucinosis centring upon her son. His welfare has become an obsession with her. There is practically nothing she would not do for him.”
“We appreciate your confidence, doctor. . . . And would it not be logical to assume that her upset condition yesterday resulted from some fear or shock connected with his welfare?”
“Undoubtedly. She has no emotional or mental life outside of him. But whether her temporary collapse was due to a real or imaginary fear, one cannot say. She has lived too long on the borderland between reality and fantasy.”
There was a short silence, and then Vance asked:
“As to Drukker himself: would you regard him as wholly responsible for his acts?”