Читать книгу Shell-Shock and Other Neuropsychiatric Problems - Elmer Ernest Southard - Страница 50

Imbecile with sudden initiative.

Case 42. (Lautier, 1915.)

A soldier, 41, a farmer, from the Department of the Marne, married, childless, was called to the colors August 31, 1914. He was on guard duty until May, 1915, watched prisoners until October and was finally sent to the front, February, 1916, where he fell sick.

“He was tired in his head.” “His commanding officer made him drill without rhyme or reason; he would have been able himself to have commanded with greater intelligence.” He once attempted to put himself at the head of the company to lead them against the Boche; this idea arrived to him all of a sudden in a phase of perfect confidence and sang froid. He thought his comrades would follow him and that the officers would do likewise. He hoped thus to be able to end the war one way or the other. He was getting tired of the war and regretted his family life and kept saying that this was no existence for family men. “We ought to attack or ask for peace.” No one followed him and his comrades said he was un peu fou but he did not share this opinion.

In point of fact he hardly knew how to read or write and at home lived with his relatives, submitting himself entirely to their guidance. He was much afraid of being punished and often feared that he had done badly as he had trop de conscience. He was non-alcoholic and without hereditary or acquired neuropathic taint. He had no pronounced stigmata of degeneration. He was rather reticent about certain mystical ideas of a political tinge. At Villejuif, whither he was brought February 17, 1916, he received a diagnosis of imbecility.