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.