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.

    38/454 (page 24)
    by the experience of others, and is indeed confirmed by his own, as he relates several cases of systematic fraud. Marshall states, that there can be no doubt that individuals occasionally qualify themselves to carry on a scheme of imposition, by the perusal of medical books. Patients, he says, in general hospitals, com- monly evince an excessive anxiety to procure case books, and avail themselves of every opportunity that offers of acquiring information by that means.! Recruits comparatively seldom enlist in consequence of a decided preference for a military life, but commonly in conse- quence of some domestic broil, or from a boyish fancy; some- times from want of work, and its immediate consequences, great indigence; or from folly or intemperance. Perhaps nine-tenths of the recruits regret the measure’ they have taken, and are wil- ling to practise any fraud, or adopt any means, which promise to restore them to liberty, and the society of their former acquaint- ances. ‘ Combien de fois ne voit on pas un jeune homme, sans expérience, étre séduit par les ruses du recruteur, ou entrainé par des chagrins momentaires, ou dans un instant d’ivresse, signer un engagement volontaire, dont il se repent vivement le lende- main ; il s’attrista; la nostalgie s’empare de lui; il devient nul pour le service, et i] finit ordinairement le reste de ces jours dans un hopital.”? Some excite ulcers, others affect stammering, deformity, pain, in various parts of the body, deafness, blindness, epilepsy, con-. tractions of the fingers, &c. A very considerable number desert within three or four days after enlistment. Individuals are sometimes met with, who refuse to move an arm or leg, and assert that they have lost the power of motion in their limbs. To obviate this disposition to fraud, a medical officer is under the necessity of presuming that a recruit is free from a disabling infirmity, when no sensible appearance proves its existence, what- ever assertions may be made to the contrary. Many recruits who became disgusted at the service during the period of hard 1 On the Enlisting, ete. p. 112, 2 Kirckhoff, Hygiéne Militaire, p. 12.