CASE HISTORIES Jl 



poverty. She died soon afterward, and his treatment of her 

 caused him much remorse. 



At twenty-five he married and had two children. One died 

 in infancy but the other, a boy, was still living. He was not 

 successful as a worker and did not provide well for his family. 

 In hard times his wife took the boy and went to live with her 

 mother, and then she got the habit and left him when he didn't 

 consider it necessary. Finally she left him altogether and de- 

 manded alimony. He became worried and was committed to this 

 hospital. 



His disease was diagnosed hebephrenic dementia precox. The 

 records state that he had felt badly for three years and had had 

 delusions that his employers persecuted him. He greatly feared 

 impotence and believed he had syphilis. He had strayed away 

 from his church and joined a fraternity which now prevented 

 his becoming a Knight of Columbus, and all these things had 

 worried him. His wife said that their married life was very 

 unhappy. He gambled and drank to excess, though seldom getting 

 drunk, and refused to support her. He accused her of infidelity, 

 called her a prostitute and swore the boy wasn't his. He accused 

 her also of all sorts of immoral practices. One night he had 

 stolen into her room and tried to strangle her, but the child's 

 screams frightened him away. 



In the hospital he was depressed and sure he was doomed to 

 die. He nearly succeeded in committing suicide by hanging. He 

 dreamed he was to be the mother of fifteen little devils, and he 

 felt that a good and bad spirit had possession of him at different 

 times. The delusions were fairly fixed in character but his belief 

 in their reality was inconstant. Following an operation for vari- 

 cocele, which he held largely responsible for his impotence, he 

 improved rapidly and was discharged as a social recovery thirteen 

 months after he entered the hospital. 



For the next three years he led an easy life as electrician in a 

 soldiers' home. When the United States entered the Great War, 

 he became restless, feeling he should do his bit, and left the home 

 to work in camp construction. He tried to get in touch with his 

 wife and child, but the grandmother would not let him see the 



