Volume 1

On feigned and factitious diseases, chiefly of soldiers and seamen, on the means used to simulate or produce them, and on the best modes of discovering impostors: being the prize essay in the class of military surgery, in the University of Edinburgh, session 1835-6, with additions / By Hector Gavin.

  • Hector Gavin
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On feigned and factitious diseases, chiefly of soldiers and seamen, on the means used to simulate or produce them, and on the best modes of discovering impostors: being the prize essay in the class of military surgery, in the University of Edinburgh, session 1835-6, with additions / By Hector Gavin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    avoiding some disagreeable service; but much more frequently, to be sent home from foreign service, or to procure a change of climate, leave of absence, &c. In order to corroborate verbal testimony, substances are swallowed to make the face pale. (See Fever.) The means employed to produce the appearance are abstinence from food or sleep for a considerable time ;! [in the case of Moor Smith it is stated, that emactation was pro- duced in ten days by sucking a copper cent all night and swal- lowing the saliva ;2] the continued use of violent purgatives, or of emetics; the frequent use of diaphoretics, especially antimony ; of small doses of infusion of tobacco, or of digitalis; excess in spirituous liquors; vinegar, the oxides of copper, supertartrate of potash, and tartaric acid have likewise been employed for this purpose. . \ote OAA< tres By the use of these agents the face becomes pale, the cheeks hollowed, and the eyes sunk in. Percy and Laurent have known young men, previous to their making their appearance before’ a medical board, cause violent emesis and purging in order to appear pale and weak. Fallot knows well a man who was .ex- empted by these means, and another who succeeded by the use of digitalis. For fifteen consecutive days he took this drug, which caused his colour to vanish; his countenance to become sunken and altered; the motions of the heart to be irregular; and on the slightest movement he was threatened with syncope. He was easily exempted, but it was a long time before he re- covered the good health which he had so rashly compromised. However highly qualified a medical man may be; it will be most difficult for him in such cases to avoid being ensnared. Many rapid recoveries have been seen to take place after the signing a sick certificate. Mr. Marshall mentions the case of an officer who offered a large fee to a medical officer, for the purpese of gaining information how to assume a. pale, 1 See a case related in Hutchison, Pract. Observations in Surgery, p. 178. 2 Beck, Medical Jurisprudence, p. 9. ' 8 Memorial de VExpert, &c., p. 284.