Show A military surgeon s experience in berlin by PROF CARL SCHLEICH they who return from the field ot battle aro changed men with a peculiar expression of the face which has become characteristic of those who are fighting for their country though there Is a uniformity of bestre to serve the fatherland further after as speedy a recovery as may be poa elble on the features of all these members of the giant organism lies the stamp of the horrors ot war which they have witnessed and this espres slon Is in direct relation to the culture of the individual notwithstanding their iron purpose to return when their injuries shall have healed these fight ers are all psychologically speaking not quite intact A tragic look in the deep set eyes an al most rigidity of face are characteristic especially ally of the officers who come under observe alon it seems as if all te horrors of conflict bad impressed themselves upon the vision and had given an expression first of astonishment at the enormities of destruction witnessed then grad bally as the eyes became weary and accustomed to the sights of elau giter they mirrored the full picture of the horrible this condition Is followed by one of uncanny calm and fixity of expression which retains its demoniac hold upon the face causing the eyes to sink deeper into the head to become dimmed and the lower lid marked with the shadow and weariness within the eyes lie deep in their bony sockets as in those suffering from insomnia or those who have been deeply touched by life a miseries this expression of the face we find even where the individual returns to bla home uninjured under solicitous care the rigidity and look of distress disappear in the course of a few weeks but on their arrival from the field these men are all slightly changed as though they had learned to shudder and no longer knew the unrestraint of joyous laughter they have seen the gorgon s head this changed expression of the face this deadly serious look this aging of the features in a short period of time is well known to rela alves and friends it Is the expression of a con which the technical physician character izes aa chronic shock of the sympathetic system expressed particularly in the arteries the effect of this is barked not alone on the pulse but also on the heart itself under the constant impulse of ita contracting muscle the heart becomes dilated and hypertrophied this physical condition results in that psychic unrest which makes life beem unattractive and gray and the future veiled in leaden mists an with out hope while all the time the recent ast la lived over in the mind and seems hire an unreal not quite tangible dream insomnia la the worst ot the psychic disturbances tur bances that follow in the wake of the heart condition and it may assume a severe form which cannot be alleviated by the known remedies these half sick people lie awake at night racked by their memories staring with open ayea into the dark they will hear the rattle and shriek of artillery the crash of the machine guns and an echo of imminent danger these memories will seem to them as the flight of the iron birds of destiny we have no sharply defined psychosis of war with constantly characteristic symptoms the occasion of war may serve to develop the latent predispositions of mental derangement and in this a habitual misuse of alcohol may play a con tlde rable role but true psychic disturbances as such have their roots further back in other words it Is the taint indication of psychic abnormality which Is brought to rapid development through war but war in itself does not develop a symptom complex of its own or a true psychosis some unusual instances of hysteria have come ander observation patients in whom functional derangements derange ments were effected by purely psychic means one is the case of a corporal of an ex wild and unrestrained disposition he came to the hospital shot through both shoulders and with profuse inflammation of the shoulder joints after four months he was al most restored to health and was amusing himself by playing upon his mouth harmonica the child ish aad individual musical instrument of the army opposite to him in the hospital lay a soldier suffering from the effects 0 a shot through the bead with stupor and violent connul the indications for a cranial operation were being discussed and the remark was made it may be a casa of tetanus it proved not to be tetanus and the spasms were relieved by the removal of a bone splinter which resulted in progressive recovery but his neighbor the corporal with healed shot wounds in the arms after three days developed typical symptoms of tetanus without fever the continued for several weeks and disappeared finally under suggestion on the emphatic assurance that no tetanus was present new york sun j s |