MALINGERING, OR SIMULATION OF DISEASES.
Former Prevalence of Malingering in the Army; and the Motives for
it--Decline of the Practice--Where most Prevalent--The means of
Simulation reduced to a System--Cases of simulated Ophthalmia
in the 50th Regiment--The Deception wonderfully kept up by many
Malingerers--Means of Detection--Simulated Paralysis--Impudent
Triumph manifested by Malingerers--Curious cases of
Hollidge--Gutta Serena, and Nyctalopia counterfeited--Blind
Soldiers employed in Egypt--Cure, by actual cautery, of a
Malingerer--Simulation of Consumption and other Diseases--Feigned
Deafness--Detection of a Man who simulated Deafness--Instances of
Self-mutilation committed by Soldiers--Simulation of Death.
A very serious evil has existed in the army, resulting from a very
general practice of idle and dissolute soldiers in barracks, and even
in more active service, feigning diseases and disabilities; for the
purpose of either escaping duty, or in the hopes of being altogether
discharged from the service, and procuring a pension. This imposture
has been termed Malingering, or the simulation of diseases, and
the unsuccessful or suspected impostors have been usually called
Malingerers. In vulgar English, the trick is called Shamming Abram.
Remarkable ingenuity, and a very considerable knowledge of the
powers and effects of medicinal agents, have been shown by those
who, _à priori_, would not be suspected of such information: and the
pertinacity shown by the impostors, when the object was to procure
their discharge, has been often wonderful.
The reasons which call for, or privilege a soldier to expect, his
discharge, are chronic and incurable rather than acute diseases. It is
natural, therefore, to find the malingerers most expert in simulating
the former, though, at the same time, the more acute diseases have not
been less faithfully represented, when the object in view was only a
temporary evasion of duty.
This practice has prevailed to a greater or less extent at different
periods of our medical-military history; and it is gratifying to learn,
from authentic sources, that in the present period of highly improved
discipline in the British army, there are not probably two malingerers
for ten who were found in the military hospitals thirty or forty years
since. It also occurs more or less according to the manner of forming
a regiment. In some of the cavalry regiments, and some of the Highland
and other distinguished infantry battalions, in which, along with a
mild but exact discipline, there is a strong attachment to the service,
and remarkable _esprit du corps_, there is scarcely an instance of
any of those disgraceful attempts to deceive the surgeon; while in
regiments which have been hastily recruited, and under circumstances
unfavourable to progressive and complete discipline, the system of
imposition is perfectly understood. Among those who counterfeit
diseases, it has been observed that the Irish are the most numerous,
the Scotsmen less so, but malingering seems least of all the vice of
English soldiers.
There appears to be a species of free-masonry among soldiers, and thus
these methods of imposture have been systematized, and handed down
for the common benefit. A case occurred of a man having a rupture,
which on inspection was found to be artificially formed from some
written directions, “How to make a rupture,” which were produced. The
man was discharged by his commanding officer, but the discharge not
being backed by the surgeon’s recommendatory certificate, he lost his
pension; the commanding officer after his return from Corunna met this
man perfectly well, following the laborious occupation of a porter.
In the year 1804, the great increase of ophthalmia in the 50th
regiment, and the reported detection of frauds in other regiments,
led to a suspicion in the mind of the surgeon of that corps, and
a consequent investigation, by which a regular correspondence was
detected between the men under medical treatment and their parents
or friends. Those suffering from ophthalmia, within the walls of the
hospital, requested that those without would forward to them corrosive
sublimate, lime, and blue-stone; and by the application of these acrid
substances to their eyes, they hoped to get them into such a state
of disease, as would enable them to procure their discharge, with a
pension. And they mentioned the names of men who had been successful by
similar means. Proofs of guilt having been established, the delinquents
were tried by a court-martial, convicted, and punished.
It is hardly possible to believe, that men would endure not only the
inconvenience of a severe ophthalmia, than which, perhaps, nothing is
more painful, but would even risk the total loss of sight, for the
uncertain prospect of a trifling pension, and with the conviction,
that even if they gained it, they reduced themselves to a helpless
dependence on others through life. But it is nevertheless certain,
that whole wards have been filled with soldiers labouring under this
artificially excited disease; this inflammation of the eye having been
produced, and maintained, by quicklime, strong infusions of tobacco,
Spanish flies, nitrate of silver, and other metallic salts. The
inflammation thus caused is most painful, yet it has been kept up under
every privation which can make life miserable.
Wonderful indeed is the obstinacy some malingerers evince; night and
day, they will remain, with the endurance of a fakir, in positions most
irksome, for weeks and months; nay, many men for the same period have,
with surprising resolution and recollection, sat and walked with their
bodies bent double, without forgetting for one moment the character of
their assumed infirmity.
These impostors are most easily discovered by a retaliating deception
on the part of the surgeon; he should conceal his suspicions, and
appear to give credit to all that is related to him of the history of
the disease, and propose some sort of treatment accordingly.
The nervous disorders that are simulated are such as to require a
constant and unceasing watchfulness on the part of the impostor, lest
he should betray himself.
Paralysis of one arm was feigned, with great perseverance and
consistency, for months; the soldier pretending that he had fallen
asleep in the open air, and awoke with his arm benumbed and powerless.
This farce he kept up with such boldness, that, being suspected, a
court-martial was held on him, and he was even tied up to the halberts
to be punished; but the commanding officer thought the evidence not
sufficiently convincing. Having, however, subsequently undergone very
severe treatment, and there being no prospect of a pension, he at last
gave in.
The unprincipled obstinacy of some individuals even triumphs openly in
the success of their imposture. A trooper in the 12th pretended that
he had lost the use of his right arm; and, after resisting for a great
length of time severe hospital discipline, he procured his discharge.
When he was leaving the regiment, and fairly on the top of the coach,
at starting, he waved his paralytic arm in triumph, and cheered at the
success of his plan. Another soldier, who pretended that he had lost
the use of his lower extremities, was reported unfit for service, and
was discharged. When his discharge was obtained, he caused himself, on
a field day, to be taken in a cart to the Phœnix park, and in front of
the regiment, drawn up in a line, he had the cart driven under a tree;
he then leaped out of the cart, springing up three times, insulted the
regiment, and scampered off at full speed.
A third soldier, of the name of Hollidge, pretending to be deaf and
dumb after an attack of fever, never for one moment forgot his assumed
character, till his purpose was attained. Being useful as a tailor, he
was kept for five or six years subsequent to this pretended calamity,
and carried on all communication by writing. On one occasion, whilst
practising firing with blank cartridge, an awkward recruit shot
Hollidge in the ear, who expressed pain and consternation by a variety
of contortions, but never spoke. Not having been heard to articulate
for five years, he was at last discharged; he then recovered the use of
speech, and a vacancy occurring shortly after, he offered himself to
fill the situation, namely, as master tailor to the regiment.
That species of blindness, thus feelingly described by Milton,
“So thick a _drop serene_ hath quenched these orbs,”
and which is that in which no manifest alteration takes place in the
eye, has been produced by the application of belladonna. Nyctalopia,
or night blindness, was frequently feigned in Egypt, and nearly half
of a corps were, or pretended to be, afflicted with it: as the troops
were employed in digging and throwing up fortifications, this state of
vision was found of not so much consequence. In transporting the earth,
a blind man was joined to, and followed by, one who could see; and when
the sentries were doubled, a blind man and one that could see were put
together, and not perhaps without advantage, as, during the night,
hearing, upon an outpost, is often of more importance than sight.
One unprincipled wretch, in an hospital, pretending to be afflicted
with a hopeless complaint, which was a subject of offence to the whole
ward, being detected, it was determined to apply the actual cautery.
On the first application of the red-hot spatula, this fellow, who for
eleven months had lost the use of his lower limbs, gave the man who
held his leg so violent a kick, that he threw him down, and instantly
exclaimed that he was shamming, and would do his duty if released; but
the surgeon declared that he would apply the iron to the other hip, on
which he roared out that he had been shamming to get his discharge. To
the amusement of all around, he walked to his bed; and when the burned
parts were healed, he returned to his duty.
Spitting of blood and consumption are rather favourite diseases with
soldiers who seek their discharge from the service through imposture;
yet an acute physician may easily detect the imposition. Palpitation
and violent action of the heart the impostors know how to produce by
the juice of hellebore; vomiting by secret pressure on the stomach;
tympany, or distention of the body by air, is produced by swallowing,
on philosophical and chemical principles, chalk and vinegar.
The acute diseases have many symptoms which are easily simulated, but
as easily detected. The appearance of the white tongue is created
by rubbing it with chalk, or whitening from the wall; but washing
the mouth with water at once proves the deceit. Dr. Hennen, in his
Military Surgery, says, “Profligates have, to my knowledge, boasted
that they have often received indulgences from the medical officers
in consequence of a supposed febrile attack, by presenting themselves
after a night’s debauch, which they had purposely protracted, to
aid the deception. Febrile symptoms are also produced by swallowing
tobacco-juice. One man, if unwilling to be cured secundum artem, was at
least anxious to enumerate his symptoms in an orthodox manner, for he
had purloined some pages from Zimmerman’s Treatise on Dysentery, (the
disease he had thought proper to simulate,) from one of the medical
officers; and from which he was daily in the habit of recounting a
change of symptoms. Stoical indifference to their frequently painful
imposture and hardihood in maintaining its character, are the necessary
qualifications of malingerers, who have frequently evinced a constancy
and fortitude under severe pain and privations worthy of a better
cause.”
A patient permitted all the preparatory measures for amputation before
he thought proper to relax his knee-joint; and another suffered himself
to be almost drowned in a deep lake, into which he was plunged from a
boat, before he stretched out his arm to save himself by swimming, an
exercise in which he was known to excel.
Those who affect deafness, are frequently caught in a snare by opening
the conversation with them in a very high tone of voice, but gradually
sinking it to its usual compass; when, thrown off his guard, the
impostor will reply to such questions as are put to him. A recruit,
unwilling to go to the East Indies, feigned deafness; he was admitted
into the hospital, and put on spoon-diet; for nine days no notice
was taken of him. On the tenth the physician, having made signs of
inquiry to him, asked the hospital sergeant what diet he was on? the
sergeant answered, “Spoon-diet.” The physician, affecting to be angry,
said, “Are you not ashamed of yourself, to have kept this man so
long on spoon-meat? the poor fellow is nearly starved; let him have
a beef-steak and a pint of porter.” Murphy could contain himself no
longer; he completely forgot his assumed defect, and, with a face full
of gratitude, cried, “God bless your honour! you are the best gentleman
I have seen for many a day.”
During the insurrection in the Kandian country, in 1818, a private
belonging to the 19th regiment was sentry at a post, and was
occasionally fired at by the enemy from the neighbouring jungle.
Availing himself of what appeared a favourable opportunity for getting
invalided and sent home, he placed the muzzle of his musket close to
the inside of his left leg, and discharging the piece, he blew away
nearly the whole of his calf. He asserted, to those who came to his
assistance, that the wound had proceeded from a shot of the enemy’s
from the jungle; but the traces of gunpowder found in the leg, told a
different tale, as well as his musket, which was recently discharged.
A sergeant in the 62d regiment purchased a pistol, and hired a person
to shoot him through the arm; hoping, by these means, to make it appear
that he had been fired at by one disaffected to the military, and that
he should be discharged with a large pension. In this, however, he was
disappointed.
Even death itself has been simulated. When some officers, in India,
were breakfasting in the commander’s tent, the body of a native, said
to have been murdered by the sepoys, was brought in and laid down. The
crime could not be brought home to any one of them, yet there was the
body. A suspicion, however, crossed the adjutant’s mind, and, having
the kettle in his hand, a thought struck him that he would pour a
little boiling water on the body; he did so; upon which the murdered
remains started up, and scampered off.