48 CASE HISTORIES 



As a child he was considered normal, but at fourteen a horse 

 kicked him in the head, lacerating the scalp. His father believed 

 the patient's attitude toward him changed after this experience 

 (presumably for the worse though the record failed to specify), 

 and ascribed it to the kick. He left school at seventeen having 

 completed one year of high school. He worked at farming and 

 in his father's store and as a laborer. Around the age of twenty 

 he drank considerably. After marriage he stopped drinking but 

 he was irritable and excitable. He was serving a second enlist- 

 ment in the navy when he got sick. He complained he had been 

 unable to sleep for many nights and had hard headaches. He 

 was quite weak. Before reaching this hospital he developed 

 hallucinations and delusions of persecution and had a severe 

 epileptiform seizure lasting five minutes. 



The hospital record mentioned no more epileptiform seizures. 

 He had had hallucinations of all senses and delusions of persecu- 

 tion which made him talk in a homicidal manner. Voices insulted 

 him. At times he was so unruly he had to be confined in the 

 worst ward. He complained of pain in the upper left arm and 

 right leg where he said his mother had cut him. No scars were 

 visible. The right side of his face was somewhat paralyzed. He 

 said other patients talked about him and cut his abdomen. That 

 his head felt bound up and he couldn't think well, and electricity 

 was used on him. 



Sex life: During the four months he was under special 

 observation no one heard him mention any sexual matter. He 

 ignored questions on sex subjects. The records gave no infor- 

 mation. 



Fantasies: The only audible indications of his fantasies 

 were his angry arguments with imaginary people who thought 

 they did better work than he and depreciated his accomplish- 

 ments. 



General observations* He was an ugly-tempered, unkempt 

 man usually quite lost in his own thoughts and oblivious to the 

 environment. Though once or twice I saw him go into laughing 

 fits he generally sat quiet with head hanging or scolding loudly in 

 great anger. This scolding was almost exclusively about what 

 blockheads and poor workers other men were and how well he 



