Postencephalitic respiratory disorders : review of syndromy, case reports, physiopathology, psychopathology and therapy / by Smith Ely Jelliffe.

  • Smith Ely Jelliffe
Date:
1927
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Postencephalitic respiratory disorders : review of syndromy, case reports, physiopathology, psychopathology and therapy / by Smith Ely Jelliffe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The forerunners are slightly perplexing. There are slight indications of difficulties in school at about fifteen to sixteen ; he liked to play hookey with the “ boys ” and they went to “ shows/' Then something acute occurred: Description of Delirium: Account by Brother “ X. had been a student at S. Preparatory School. It was near the Easter vacation when he came home. It was either the last week in March or the first in April, 1922. [Dr. Burr has it incorrectly as 1923.] He had complained of having had a slight sore throat and an influenzal condition for two or three days. The school doctor gave him the usual treatments for such ailments and thought it best to send him home for a day or two. He came home in the early afternoon. He was running a slight temperature and was quiet and seemed depressed. We put him to bed and sent for our family physician, Dr. L. He diagnosed the condition as an influenzal sore throat, prescribing an alkaline gargle and giving a cough compound containing minute doses of codeine. X. slept alone. He seemed quiet as far as we could tell during the night. In the morning, along about 9 or 10 o’clock when I went into his room, he said, “ Get out and let me alone. Let me rest. I had an awful night.” We left him alone. He got out of bed in the afternoon and started to wash and shave. It was apparent that something had happened to him. He acted as though he were laboring under some tremendous excitement. When I went to talk to him in the bathroom, he was singing and shouting and laughing. “Wow,” he shouted, “I like my liquor strong and my women weak.” He sang and shouted and yelled while completing his toilet. His eyes were bright and his gestures and gesticulations spastic and exaggerated and jerky. His teeth chattered and he shook all over like a jelly at times. I stood with him until he quieted down, for say ten or fifteen minutes. This acute stage of his delirium did not last more than half an hour, as far as I can recollect. When he quieted down, he said to me, “ I can’t tell you what happened to me last night except that it was something terrible. I suffered all night. I dreamt that I died and then came to life again and saw angels. [There are a few more details in this dream delirium which are of psychoanalytic interest but of no importance here. Thus the “ angels ” he saw were two carved angel figures which were on the back of an old couch, no longer in family’s possession but once used by mother while nursing this boy. He has no conscious recollection of ever having seen