Evening star., 1941-02-08
Of Sturs, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Laboratory. Field
And Study
BIZ Thomas r. Henry.

By Thomas r. Henry.
PSychiatriSts are searching in the past
lives of insane soldiers and sailors for
something which might have indicated,
at the time they enlisted, that they
would lose their minds in the service.
Care of mental and nervous wrecks
from the first World War already has
cost the American people more than
$1,000 100000. much of which might have
been saved had it been possible to detect
the prospective victims beforehand.
A crucial experiment has just been
completed with 1873 such patients at St.
Elizabeths Hospital, where mental cases
from the services are sent. Here are
some of the findings:
Thirty-four per cent had psychotic
relatives. Thirty per cent had been ar
rested at least twice for drunkenness.
Thirty-seven per cent came from
homes broken by divorce or death before
they were l3.
Half showed no evidence whatsoever
upon which a psychiatrist could have
predicted breakdown.
With the other half, the ST Elizabeth's
doctors say, careful examination would
have kept the man out of the service
At least 10 per cent they found, had
been in mental hospitals before enlisting.
Many broke down the first day on &C
tive duty and 40 per cent during the first
year of enlistment. They saw no active
service of any kind. This is in keeping.
say the pSychiatriStS with the World
War experience. The majority of al
legged Shell shock" cases never left the
United States
1t is probably far too great a risk, ac-
cording to DR.. Roscoe w. Hall of the
st. Elizabeth's staff, to allow any man
in the Army with insanity in his imme-
diate family. The factor of heredity in
mental cases remains very debatable.
ANY individual may be entirely sane
with stable nervous system. The one
certain fact is that breakdowns are more
probable in persons from families in
which they have occurred.
Two types of insanity are most prev
alent among soldiers and sailors, the
st. Elizabeth's psychiatrists say-manic
Oppressive psychosis and schizophrenia
The former tends to be passed in
direct line from parents to children. II
is the less serious form of the two, but
the victim, usually likable fellow apt
to advance rapidly, is extremely danger
Gus when the break comes DR.. Hall told
Of one World War artillery officer who
rendered distinguished service. but
finally, when the mania came upon him.
wildly turned his guns on his own
troops.
The most common and the most dan
gerous is the Schizophrenia victim. Here
the study fails to show any direct hered-
itary pattern, but it does show that most
OF the victims came from families some
members of which had shown some form
OF mental instability. II all men from
such families were weeded out, there
would be few Schizophrenics.
Draft boards and recruiting officers
the ST. Elzabeth's psychiatrsts believe
should watch particularly for police rec
ords Of arrest for drunkenness. not to
weed out drunkards, but to eliminate
prospective mental cases. 1t is well
known, they say. that excessive drinking
such as brings man into police court
Is an indication of nervous and mental
instability. which at any time NAV take
some other form.
All known remnants of the Languages
OF the wandering and cannibal Indians"
as they were designated by Spanish ex-
plorers on l7th century maps of South
ern Texas, have just been collected from
published and unpublished sources by
DR.. John R. Swanton, Smithsonian In
stitution ethnologist.
These savages were relatively small
probably quite primitive. groups who
played brief role in New World history
and vanished from the earth nearly two
centuries ago. They were untitled to
survive contact with their white con-
querors. Some simply died off. Others
were maSSacred.
The significance of DR.. Swanton's
work can best be appreciated by a con-
densed picture of Indian distribution in
America at the time of the early white
explorations. Stretching westward along
the Gulf coast to Louisiana were Musko-
gean-speaking people, such as the
Creeks. Chocktaws and Chickasaws.
They spoke closely related languages.
had highly developed societies and were
in the main, agricultural Along the
Texas coast and westward along the
Mexican border were considerable
number of tribes, relatively primitive in
their social organization, and speaking
a babel of tongues between which it is
difficult to find any traces of relation
ship.
Further west, through Arizona and
New Mexico, were the powerful Navaios
and also many people linguisticaIly re-
lated to the Aztecs. one of the most ad-
vanced of all New World peoples. Then,
in California, were numerous other prim-
1tive tribes, some with only handful Of
members, all speaking languages distinct
from one another or only remotely
related
1t is known that the Navajos and also
the ancestors of the Aztecs came orig
inally out of the north Study of these
linguistic pictures, says DR.. Swanton, in