CASE HISTORIES 63 



gasp of the psychosis. He came to look on it all as imagination. 



General observations: He was a big, fat boy with a boob 

 face, and his behavior was what might be expected in a child of 

 his mental age, nine years. At first he was much worried over 

 his body and always had a new pain or ache or funny feeling. 

 He examined his phlegm and feces to see if any nerves had come 

 out in them, and took great satisfaction in an enema. He was 

 emotional and wept on any provocation, particularly at mention of 

 home and mother. He said she loved him most of any of her 

 children, and he felt he ought to behave well to please her, and 

 explained what a good boy he had been at home, coming in after 

 a ten-hour work day and chopping wood for an hour so his father 

 wouldn't have to. 



He was exceedingly lazy, sitting or lying down most of the 

 day, and refusing to aid in the ward work. When reproved by 

 a Red Cross girl and told she would give him no more gum and 

 candy if he didn't work, he got very busy until she was out of 

 sight. The nurses tried in vain to get him to help in the pantry 

 until they offered him extra food. After that he was most faith- 

 ful. When forced to go without breakfast on the day of his 

 sugar tolerance test, he was deeply grieved and turned his face to 

 the wall because he could not bear to see the other men eat. His 

 appetite was enormous. 



It was evident he had been teased and ostracized on account 

 of his childish appearance and dull wits, and he had kept to 

 himself largely through fear of rebuff and ridicule if he made 

 friendly advances. The vocabularly test in the Stanford Revision 

 intelligence test proved to be a good complex-indicator for he 

 invented meanings for every word he didn't know, and many 

 of these definitions showed a desire for friends and the feeling 

 that other people didn't want him around and took advantage of 

 him. Examples: mosaic, to mose around with someone who 

 doesn't want you; tolerate, to tantalize one who is under you 

 and can't protect himself ; brunette, to be brewed with someone, 

 to be needy, to nag someone ; ochre, to be an ochre with some- 

 one, to have friends, be chums; achromatic, to be very achro- 

 matic with someone, to be friends and chum with ; outward, to be 



