Evening star., 1941-03-06
SIackers in Germany
Become Artists in
Stimulating Illness
Medical Journal Article
Tells of Methods Thot
Sonfound Examiners
By THOMAS r.. HENRY.

BY THOMAS IL. HENRY.
Faking sickness to escape military
service has become a fine art in
Germany.
The American doughboy in the
World War who devised such tricks
as swallowing fakes of laundry soap
to fool the company doctor was a
blundering tyro, it appears from the
revelations of German physician
named K. Buinewitsch in a current
issue of a Vienna medical journal
which has just been distracted by
the American Medical Association.
There are probably, he says, lab
oratories and instructors in disease
and wound stimulation operating
through Austria and Czecho-
Slovakia, since some of the tricks
uncovered are far beyond the COM
petence of a layman.
Lung Wound Simulated.
Some of the strategems of which
he warns recruiting officers are:
Shooting off a finger through q
thin board or a crust of bread. An
unshielded shot, he explains, always
will leave burns on the surrounding
skin which show that it has been
fired at close range. A bread crust
held against the finger entirely
eliminated this evidence.
Stimulating a shot through the
lung recently received in a hunting
accident. This requires the CO.
operation of a fairly competent but
disloyal surgeon. Flaps of skin are
lifted from both the chest and back
Shots are fired through both. Then
they are replaced with all the art of
the plastic surgeon. 1t looks as
though a bullet has passed through
the chest and the examining mill
tary doctor is likely to overlook the
lines of the flaps, which can be made
to look like bandage marks.
Injecting turpentine or petroleum
into the joints. This produces for
several weeks a swelling of the
Joints which can easily be mistaken
for advanced arthritis.
Injections of parraf1n, it has been
found, form artificial tumors, which
only a thorough examination can
differentiate from real ones.
Fumes Lead to Bronchitis"
Severe bronchitis, with buzzing
rales which will fool any examiner,
is being produced by inhaling va
pors of chlorine, bromine and am
monia, DR.. Buinewitsch says. An
other way is to smoke thick paper.
Medical examiners should be suS-
picious, he says, if very many men
otherwise in good health appear
with this condition. especially in
warm weather.
A severe palpitation of the heart,
he points out, can be produced by
smoking tea leaves. The alkaloid
in the tea enters the blood by way
of the lungs and does not pass
through the liver, where it Is de-
toxified when taken in the form of
drink. Thus 1t has a far more po-
tent effect on the heart.
Rubbing mercurial ointment into
the skin on the chest, he says; can
be done so that tuberculosis LESSONS
will be simulated in an X-ray pic
ture. The effect can be made more
realistic by staining the sputum with
cranberry juice.
Severe but temporary anemias are
produced by drinking vinegar or
eating chalk. One of the best tricks
is to produce a severe edema of the
legs. First they are bound tightly
with wide bands which leave no
signs of pressure. Then the area
from which the blood has been shut
off is, pounded with a small sand
bag. This edema, he says, disap-
pears rapidly. To make the simula-
lation more realistic, some have in
jected various substances into the
bladder.
Poison Doses Cause Jaundice.
Another good trick, he says, is to
cause jaundice by drinking very
minute amounts of picric acid This
turns the skin a light, lemon yellow.
1t also may produce tremorS, slight
convulsions, emaciation and anemia,
which also are characteristic, of
jaundice. 1t is almost impossible to
detect this trick, DR.. Buinewitsch
says, unless the man gives himself
away by saying that he has had
jaundice for several months. If this
were the case his color would be a
grayish brown. Also a thorough
examination may arouse suspicion
because the pulse is not slow and
the liver and spleen are not enlarged.
The picric acid usually is taken in
specially prepared waters which do
not discolor the mouth. Picric acid
is a violent poison, he warns pros
pective service evaderS, and a slight
overdose is likely to be fatal. Also,
he says, a test is now known which
will detect it in the blood.
A favorite trick, he says, is to
simulate epilepsy, but few are able
to do it cleverly enough to fool the
average medical examiner. But
however likely it may be that per-
son has this disease, he warns, it Is
we'll always to inquire into his past
history-because the specialists in
stimulation may be step ahead OF