Feigned diseases, their detection and management / by George Wilson.

  • Wilson, George
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Feigned diseases, their detection and management / by George Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    properly. When asked to walk, he went tripping along, taking short rapid steps, and without allowing the heels to touch the floor. Although I could not think so, it was quite possible that this might be some strange and insidious form of locomotor ataxy, and 1 therefore examined into all the features of the case as care¬ fully as I could. I found the temperature of his legs normal; sen¬ sation normal; no wasting or flabby state of the muscles; no ocu¬ lar disturbances; the urine normal. He could stand with his eyes bandaged; and, when asked to walk, tripped along as he had done before, keeping his arms extended to prevent his falling or knock¬ ing against anything. He could even shuffle backwards. The officer also told me that he could carry his urinal to the water- closet with both hands, and that, at these times, he walked much better than when exhibiting during the visit. Being satisfied as to the nature of the case, he has been treated to a daily application of an electro-magnetic battery, to which he submits apparently with the greatest resignation. Finding that this did not succeed, I ap¬ plied Corrigan’s cautery along the spine, so as to produce a series of small blisters, and these have been kept open by ung. sabinse dressing. In spite of all this, he daily maintains that he is “ much the same—no better and no worse.” He looks well, takes his food well, and sleeps well. I have told him my opinion of his case, and have ordered an ordinary galvanic battery, which, in my experience, is far more suitable for such cases, because more pow¬ erful, than the electro-magnetic. I expect that a few doses from the new instrument will produce a rapid cure. If it be asked, how is it possible that a prisoner would submit to all this if there were not something the matter writh him? the answer is that, in this case, the prisoner detests work, and is an old malingerer; in the second place, he would like to be invalided ; and, thirdly, he is afraid of being reported and flogged when he is discharged from hospital. All these are sufficiently powerful motives, without tak¬ ing into consideration that spirit of dogged determination common to almost all cases of malingering amongst convicts, which prompts the schemer to persist to the utmost verge of endurance, for the simple reason that, in being obliged to give in, he loses caste amongst his fellows, and is liable to be reminded of his failure oftener than he likes. But when a prisoner, by feigning paralysis, has succeeded so far as to escape detection, and is at last removed to an invalid prison, the case presents itself in a new aspect. In the first place, the prisoner has been invalided because his disease was believed to be genuine ; but beyond the mere statement of the : cause of invaliding, no detailed history of the case is forwarded. The surgeon has, therefore, to trust to the patient’s own account of the commencement and progress of the disease, and to the conclu- ; sions which he himself may arrive at after a physical examination. If he has doubts concerning the exact nature of the case, he is