A striking case of simulated deafness / by Dr. Thomas Barr.

  • Barr, Thomas, 1846-1916.
Date:
[1892]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A striking case of simulated deafness / by Dr. Thomas Barr. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    servants in the hospital, who knew nothing of our suspicions, remarked that the patient sometimes seemed to get her hearing back for a moment and then it passed away again entirely. They had observed that she appeared at times to know what they said in circumstances which precluded the possibility of lip-reading. On two occasions when persons shouted very loudly into the ear she was observed to wink, although she refused to admit hearing anything. Notwith- standing our suspicions, it was resolved to treat her on the assumption of the reality of the deafness. The enlarged tonsils were at first excised, then pilocarpin, by subcutaneous injection, was administered twenty times at intervals of one and two days. On the first two occasions she received one eighth of a grain, afterwards a quarter of a grain. She re- mained in bed two hours after each injection, and salivated and perspired very freely. It appeared that when treated at home with hypodermic injections of pilocarpin, she sat on a chair at the fireside after each injection and neither perspired nor salivated. Entire Recovery of Hearing: After having been in the hospital for five weeks we received demonstration that she really heard. A servant in the hospital had musical pro- clivities, and frequently sang to the indoor patients. One afternoon our patient was heard to sing the identical songs which had been sung by the servant in the forenoon of the same day. In the case of one of these songs at least, she admitted that she never had heard it before coming into the hospital. She evidently possessed a good musical ear and sang this song remarkably correctly. On being asked how it was that she was able to sing it, never having heard the song, she tried to escape from the difficulty by pretending to have acquired the air through noticing the face and mouth of the singer ! This, I assured her, was impossible, at which she was evidently taken aback and began to weep. During the following day she was silent and moody, and in the evening she said to the curator : I begin to hear a little in one ear. The curator, in order to encourage her, remarked that, as the deafness had taken three days to come on, it might pass off in the same time. On the day following she said that her hearing was still better, and that the improve- ment was in both ears; on the third day she confessed that