Bennington semi-weekly banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 1894-1902, 1895-01-08
HOAXINGTHEDOCTO
ILLNESS OFTEN SIMULATED BY SAIL
ORS AND SOLDIERS.

An Old Army Surgeon Tells of the Tricks
Attempted to Mislead the Physician.
How Doctors Expose the Frauds of Their
Shamming Patients.
eff any one thinks that all doctor has
to do is to cure diseases, he is very much
mistaken" said an old army surgeon in
talking to a reporter the other day. Zone
might think that with all the sickness
and suffering in the world everybody
would be glad to stay well when they had
the chance, but the fact is that some of
the hardest work doctor has to do is to
tell whether his patients are sick at ALL or
only willfully deceiving him. This is par
ticularly the case in the practice Of army
and naval surgeons where the incentive
to deception is greatest, though there is
still considerable of it met with in private
practice and in the examining boards of
the pension office, where disability is a
premium that the applicant would often
pay good price for if it could be obtained
in that way.
But tho most common place to meet
with simulated diseases used to be in the
British army and navy in the days of the
pl'So anu SOllsNil Ju SdlBS, NItIG IL JODh
more of a doctors time to weed out the
shamming patients than to cure the sick
ones. The stimulation of disease in the
British army once assumed such proper
tions that it was punished with heavy pen
alites, none of which, however included
discharge from the service, for that was
just what the deCeivers wanted.
1.-The malingcrers as they were termed,
had regular secret prescriptions for simu-
lating disease, and some of them ran fear
full risks and underwent fortunes in prac-
ticing upon themselves with drugs, such
as hellebore, to effect temporary derange-
ment Of the heart or other organs. The
physicians had to be equally crafty to de-
tect the smulations, and so this branch Of
medicine became almost a science in it.
self, and though not now of such impor.
lance has remained an interesting study
ever since.
"a man who is bent upon making him
self appear i'll and disabled, either to Sc.
cure a pension or a discharge from the
service, will simulate anything from
chronic rheumatism to intermittent fever,
and it is hard to tell the imitation from
the genuine. There is one case on record
where man assumed lateral curvature of
the spine, so that his arms touched the
ground when he attempted to walk, and
remained in this position for s months,
returning to his normal position as soon
as discharged without apparently any i'll
effects from his long distortion. / myself
once knew of a case where a soldier simu-
lated epileptic fits till the suggestion OF
using the actual cautery on him was made
during one of his paroxysms, when he re.
covered with surprising rapidity.
Soldiers have almost as long list OF
diseases which they simulate as have doc
tors of the diseases they cure. A common
one in the southern countries, such as In.
dia and Africa, where there is continual
intense light, is night blindness This
is real disease that will often Temporal.
rily disable half of a command and conse
queDtly is very commonly feigned to Sc
cure immunity from duty. One of the sim
pie ways of detecting the feigned disease
when it refuses to yield to treatment is to
say that exercise is necessary for the health
of the patients and have them escorted to
posts for guard duty by a comrade and
left there for their full term of duty.
blindness is q very common feigned
affection, and to make it appear real drugs
are used by the malignerers to dilato the
pupil and otherwise give the eye an unnat-
ural appearance. StIamonium, snuff, bel
ladonna and other substances are used, the
effects of which it is impossible to tell at
first from real amurosis. Even when con-
fined in a ho,pital ward the men will
sometimes conceal drugs about the bed
clothes and use them periodically when
they think they are not observed
Watching sometimesdetects the men in
this, and rigorous isolation where no drugs
can be obtained follows But L had a case
once where a man was SO clever at con.
cealing belladonna that we had to pu: