78 CASE HISTORIES 



explanation of "what this is all about." His parole had to be 

 taken back, and he was confined to a ward. 



The masculine protest was shown by his letting his beard 

 grow and wearing an army uniform. " I'm a man, I'm no molly- 

 coddle, and I want to prove it." He demanded that I afford him 

 opportunity for heterosexual intercourse, and when I refused, 

 escaped to town in search of it, but was recaptured. 



The greatest temptations of his life had been to murder his 

 wife and the men he believed she had relations with, and to com- 

 mit fellatio and cunnilingus. His greatest regrets were that' he 

 had not been able to have coitus with the widow when she was 

 willing, and that he had done cunnilingus on his wife, and had 

 once begun fellatio on a boy. 



One day when he showed resistance toward me he said, " I 

 keep things back from you because I don't want my belief in 

 these things destroyed. I prefer my delusions. ("What is a 

 delusion?") A false belief. They aren't false to me. I have 

 faith in them. ("Why call them false then?") Because I was 

 called insane. I've been driven insane by other people. They 

 sent me here to get evidence on me, that's all. I don't know what 

 they expect to find. They must have a fall guy, a goat. I don't 

 want to get sane. I fear my son is not really mine, and the 

 widow I was so fond of has negro blood because her son's arms 

 are so very long." He became despondent and quarrelsome and 

 got into fights with other patients, thinking they were women or 

 myself in disguise. 



In a fortnight he improved once more and his parole was re- 

 stored. " I'm working my way out of this tangle, out of my 

 delusions and hallucinations. It's as you say, it is real to the 

 man himself, but it's all in his own mind just the same. I'm 

 satisfied my trouble is all in my head and I feel I'm straightening 

 it out. I feel I can find interesting work and earn my living. At 

 first I couldn't believe you when you said the mind could get sick, 

 I didn't realize it could. It seemed some phenomena superior to 

 man. Now I see it's all in the mind. A man can be anything he 

 has a desire to be, provided he has will power to back it up." 



In another month he seemed fairly normal to his physician, 

 and the latter allowed him to go on a Red Cross party to town. 



