The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-08-25
ALLEGED DEATHS FROM HOME.
 SICKNESS.

Two deaths from nostalgia, or home
 Santiago have been reported by
 General Shafter to the War Depart
 ment. Both of these cases, remarkable
 to say, occurred in the same regiment,
 the 2d Massachusetts Volunteers. We | presume that the diagnosis in these cases was carefully and accurately | made by the military surgeons, yet we should like more light on this interest ting and important subject.
 The daily reports show that the troops at Santiago are suffering much from the climate and various infections, | especially typhoid, malarial and vel 1 low revers, and this fact should remind | us that the profound psychoses are | not infrequently associated with or caused by some form of infection. Typhoid and malarial poisons especial ly have been noted in this role, and so
 true is this that in order to arrive at strictly scientific diagnosis it would
 be we'll to be sure whether any obscure | form of these diseases Is present in such cases.
 | The fact that two cases occurred in the same regiment points possibly also | to the influence of imitation or sug- | gestion. In all the psychoses,, especi- l ally hysteria and the mild forms of in- | sanity this factor is now well known to be sometimes active We need only | recall the cases of folie communique | that have been put on record. In these instances a mental disease has been
 known to be communicated from a pa- | tient to another highly susceptible person. In one instance three were in- | volved, the first having imposed her
 delusions upon the others. Epidemics of hysteria are too well known to need
 more than mention.
 The fact, however, that the two cases
 in the army at Santiago were so rapid
 ly fatal can probably only be explained
 on the theory that the patients were possibly much reduced physically by l the exposure and infection The mere
 separation from home on what prom | ised to be but a short military expedi- tion hardly seems sufficient in itself | to have caused such outward results.
 The case is different with the poor emil 1 grant, who feels that all the home ties
 are hopelessly severed.
 | Nostalgia, or homesickness, is mere
 ly form of melancholia. As in all the i insanities, more than one factor usual 1 ly acts as a cause-hence the necessity
 for knowing the heredity and antece-
 dents of the patient The enforced ab-
 sence from home may simply act as an
 exciting cause; there may be far deep
 er-seated causes, such 'as grave con- | stitutional defects, that act as the real basis for the disease This is especial
 ly true in cases in which the reason is
 permanently lost or life itself sacri- | feed. Some races, or people are suppos- | ed to be especially liable to this dis
 ease; the inhabitants of mountainous | countries for instance, are said to suf- 1 fer unduly. Hence the Swiss are said to
 furnish many examples. So also rustics
 are more prone to suffer than the in- habitants of towns.
 The observation of nostalgia among
 soldiers Is by no means new or recent.
 Baron Larrey, the eminent military
 surgeon of the Napoleonic wars, wrote
 on this subject in his surgical memoirs.
 In our own country observations were
 made in the late Civil war. Calhoun ] wrote on nostalgia as a disease of held
 service, and Peters noted this affec-
 tion as among the evils of youthful en- | listmens.
 | It is remarkable fact that the some what extensive literature of nostalgia 1 is almost entirely French. Many mono graphs have been written in that lan- l guage on this subject. The American, l English and even German literature Is
 comparatively meagre. This will seem | to be proof to some readers that the
 French have more of the 'mal du
 pays than other nations have--just
 as they are said to have more of the
 other psychoses. But to our mind it is
 rather an indication that they have greater literary activity among the ] curiosities of medicine.-The Philadel- phia Medical Journal.
 i