I am researching an ancestor of someone in my genealogy group and I have discovered that he absconded during WW1 and was sent to an asylum in Wales where he died a few months later of 'paralysis of the insane'. Does anyone know what this is/ Did he have shellshock?
There seems to be a bit of a cover up as his file has 42 documents in it asking about his military record which seems to have mysteriously disappeared after his death, some have clearly been tampered with and there is an enquiry going on two years after his death.
I see that it can be a complication of syphilis, however there is no mention of syphilis on his earlier medical records. I believe that something happened to him on the battlefield that led to him deserting when he was due to go back to the front.
"In 1913 all doubt about the syphilitic nature of paresis was finally eliminated when Noguchi and Moore demonstrated the syphilitic spirochaetes in the brains of paretics."
I think he had problems before and that was why he went awol. he had a wife and six children in England. I think they caught him and sent him to an asylum where he died eight months later.