CASE HISTORIES 69 



Mental diagnosis: Schizophrenia with projection, in a 

 moron. He seemed perfectly sincere in his amnesia for all the 

 mental manifestations of his psychosis. All he remembered was 

 that he had felt cold, nervous, and breathless, and trembled a lot. 

 Finding it very difficult to adjust to the strange new conditions, 

 the news of his mother's death was too much to bear, and he 

 sought refuge in a psychosis. His apparently ridiculous state- 

 ment that the Germans had won the war because he hadn't bathed 

 regularly becomes intelligible if interpreted as a symbolic way of 

 saying that he was dirty (mentally) and the enemy (improper 

 impulses) was therefore getting control of him. The usual 

 depression and sense of unworthiness with fear of punishment 

 and death followed. His catatonia was a form of self-protection 

 against assault. 



As he recovered he developed complete amnesia for the 

 mental content of the psychosis including his mother's death. 

 Along with the repressed perverse cravings went the memory 

 of any previous knowledge of such matters, and he was quite 

 honest in declaring he had never heard of them. After his re- 

 covery he regained the memory of sexual ideas that he had held 

 previous to the psychosis, but he still had amnesia for his mother's 

 death and had to suffer the agony of her loss a second time. But 

 the war was over now and home was in sight, and he could 

 endure the shock. 



PURDY 



History: He was a slender, serious-looking man with iron 

 gray hair. His age was forty-two, and he had been in this hos- 

 pital once before. He denied that there was any mental disease 

 in the family but his parents had both drunk. He was the oldest 

 of six sons. He reached only the third grade in school. When 

 six years old he was struck by a train he said, and remained 

 unconscious for three days. 



He had been a wild boy and liked to be a leader in mischief 

 and daredeviltry. He stole papers from news stands and coal 

 from railroad cars, jumped trains and threw bricks at trainmen 

 from bridges, and tried to excel in stone throwing and high div- 

 ing. Sometimes he'd stay away from home for a night or two. 



