" Case 3.--Private, aged 23. admitted on Jan. 26th, 1915. The patient says that he was blown off a heap of bricks 15 feet high owing to a shell bursting close to him. Thinks he must have fallen into a pool of water, as he next remembers finding himself, about 3 p.m. the same afternoon in a cellar near a church with his clothes drenched. He does not know how he got there or how he left the cellar, but he remembers being in another hospital before he was admitted here. He cannot say if anyone was in the cellar with him. He remembers someone in the train talking to him and reminding him of being in the cellar.
Present condition.--Jan 27th.-- A healthy-looking man, well-nourished, but obviously in an extremely nervous condition. He complains that the slightest noise makes him start. His legs feel weak and he has pain in the precordial region. His sight has been very much impaired since the shock. Distant vision, he says is affected, and objects and type become blurred when long looked at. He has slept very little the last two nights. Heart, lungs, and jints apear normal. Abdomen, general spasm of muscles of wall on being touched. Hands tremulous. Knee-jerks normal, but the first attempts to evoke them provoked a spasm of the calf muscles and a few general convulsive movements as the patient lay in bed. His hands became very tremulous and his forehead sweated profusely. He appeared as if about to faint, and says that he felt cold and dizzy, and experienced "round and round movements of the stomach." The slightest touch on the legs provoked well- marked spasm of the quadricepts muslces of the same thigh. Plantar reflexes not obtainable. Extensor muscles of the toes appeared to be in a state of tonic contraction.
Jan. 30th.--Slept well last night for the first time. Bowels not opened for five days since the shock. Took an aperient last night and this morning; bowels open to-day. Eyes: Fundi normal. Fields, distinctly contracted, as in chart 2. Near vision, either eye, No. 14 Jaeger; less for short words. Visual acuity …--at first 6/24, but improved by encouragement and the indiscriminate use of weak + or - lenses to nearly 6/6. Has complained until to-day of a subjective sensation of the odour of cordite. This has left him "since the bowels are open." Left nostril fails to detect smell of ether, peppermint eucalyptus, ammonia, carbolic acid, or iodine tincture, all of which save the last, are at once recognised when placed beneath the right nostril. No signs of nasal obstruction. Taste : Only tastes very strong solutions of sugar, salt, and acid, and then only when the tongue has been withdrawn and moved about the mouth; the taste is described as "faint."
Feb. 1st.-- He complains that he gets very excited when anyone addresses him. He still fails to remeber how he got to the cellar, but he now remembers someone there asking him his name and regiment. He says : "When I got into the hospital before I came to this one I can now remember being put against a wall and then being taken into a small room to see the doctor, who gave me a ticket and told me i was suffering from concussion. I think I must have gone to sleep after this, as I don't remember anything else until I was in the train. There a Royal Army Medical Corps bearer brought me a German prisioner to talk to. He was in the Bavarian Guard and had just seen his first action.
[Patient is still under treatment]

What was Myers interpretation of this case?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Comment on these cases seems superfluous. They appear to constitute a definite class among others arisisng from the effects of shell-shock. The shells in question appear to have burst with considerable noise, scattering much dust, but this was not attended by the production of odour. It is therefore difficult to understand why hearing should be (practically) unaffected, and the dissociated "complex" be confined to the senses of sight, smell and tast (and to memory). The close relation of these cases to those of "hysteria" appears fairly certain.