THE DIAGNOSIS OF "WAR PSYCHOSES"

Shortly after the beginning of the war it was rumored that a number of anomalous psychoses were being observed among the soldiers; that is, patients in whom all the symptomatology previously would have led the psychiatrist to give a gloomy prognosis, but who recovered spontaneously without apparent residual. This group was understood to contain only psychogenetically-determined psychoses, and did not include any cases which might be regarded as organic. Until the fall of 1918 no opportunity was offered us to see anything of this war result with the exception of a few sporadic cases.Two of these, however, were calculated to increase one's interest in the type of clinical material to be seen. The first case was that of a psychosis in a sergeant who had led an unusually sheltered life, with no adequate notion of sex adaptation. He had had no opportunity frankly to face problesms because his entire