Ninth annual report to the committee from the medical director : presented 31st December, 1930 / The Cassel Hospital for Functional Nervous Disorders.

  • Cassel Hospital for Functional Nervous Disorders (Richmond, England)
Date:
[1931?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Ninth annual report to the committee from the medical director : presented 31st December, 1930 / The Cassel Hospital for Functional Nervous Disorders. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ANNUAL REPORT to the COMMITTEE by the MEDICAL DIRECTOR ON Patients who were discharged from the Hospital during the year 1929. Presented — 31s/ December, 1930. This report deals as usual only with patients who have been discharged for at least one year. 178 patients were discharged during the p>eriod of whom 22 had been in previously. The latter will be dealt with in their appropriate year in the next annual report, which will be a long retrospective one. The classification is on the same lines as in former years. With regard to the new patients, 90 were classed among the psychoneuroses. Sixty-six of these are now well or much improved, i.e., from one to two years after discharge. Seventeen are not any the better for treatment; five have not been heard from. There were seven patients in the obsessive-compulsive table of this group. Three of these are known to be so much improved now, that they might be called well. The difficulty of successful treatment in this class of patient has been frequently commented on in previous reports. One of these was a man of 36, married, who had the compulsion to count nmnbers and be influenced by them. He had to go in and out of a house four times or sixteen times before he could enter finally ; he was unable to read because he had to read each line sixteen times before he could proceed to the next. He was therefore debarred from going about or otherwise occupying himself, and he had begun to suffer from bouts of alcoholism, which he had begun to relieve his misery. The four or multiple of four idea was related to the date of his birth and was of no great importance. An analytic investigation revealed intense jealousy of a younger sister who had displaced him in his mother’s eyes. This with its ramifications was duly explored and the s3^mptoms cleared up. He was in the hospital six months. The second was a man of 26, whose main compulsion was to examine his clothes to see that they were “ right.” He had to look at them constantly to see that there was no dirt on them, that the trousers weie let down equally and to the proper length and so on. As he had to stop when walking to do this carefully enough, going out had become difficult. There were other minor obsessions. He was a Roman Catholic and there were severe conscious conflicts between his religious beliefs and his sexual desires and practices. But there was also the strongest wish to coerce his father, who was a very mild person, and he achieved this largely through the instrumentality of his illness. It was necessary to give the father a good deal of advice, which he followed. This patient was in the hospital 10 months. The third, who improved, was also in the hospital 10 months. He was 22 3'’ears of age. His thoughts and compulsive acts varied : but some were always present. At one time it would be, that