Document 74
Clinical case recorded at Voronezh Medical Institute, 1935
S. G. Zhislin, Ob alkogol’nykh rasstroistvakh: klinicheskie issledovaniia,, Voronezh, 1935, pp. 113-14.
Case 14. Patient Z., forty five years old.
Brought in from the train-station infirmary at 4 a.m.
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First contact with alcohol was at age twenty. Seldom drank. Drunkenness intensified at approximately thirty six-thirty seven years of age.¼
Spent last few weeks in Moscow, where he was visiting his brother and was trying to get a job. Prior to leaving Moscow he drank for four consecutive days (up to a liter a day). Did not sleep well, and ate irregularly. Had his suitcase with belongings stolen at the [Moscow] train station. With a few rubles in his pocket, the patient got on a train. He hoped to find a job in Voronezh, counting on help from old friends. He was wrong: when he arrived in Voronezh on 27 September, he could not find his friends, and spent four days at the train station. Felt physically ill, and grew very weak. Did not sleep at all for four nights. Ate very little during this time.On the night of 30 September-1 October the patient was overcome by extraordinary fears: passengers were running and bustling by, and a hurly-burly atmosphere developed. It began to seem to him that certain agents were infiltrating the hall. First they were dressed in sailors’ uniforms, then they were dressed in civilian clothes and briskly rushing by. The patient unmistakably recognized all of them, however, by their raised collars, in which they tried to bury their faces. Soon the patient heard (amid the hubbub) a conversation; he listened more closely. It was about shooting a young woman and an old man who was a passenger. The agent was insisting that the shooting take place, and he asked the train-station director to set things up so that there would be minimal panic; the latter promised to send engines to the platform (the engine whistles would drown out the shots). A few minutes later the engine whistles let out an alarming roar. Through the din and hubbub the patient managed to hear three shots. The hubbub and chaos intensified; people crowded together and screamed. The patient noticed something in the corner that was covered with a horse blanket, and decided that these were the bodies of the passengers who had been shot. People all around were talking over each other; deafened by the shouting, the patient could not understand anything. Nor could he figure out the meaning of the gestures and signals that passengers were giving him. Shortly afterward he spotted an "agent" in front of him. The latter screeched: "Take him, we’ll show him." The agent threatened the patient with a gun that had red smoke curling out of its muzzle. Mustering all of his remaining energy and racked with fear, the patient jumped up on a table, begged for mercy and appealed to people for help. During the effort to subdue him he put up heavy resistance, after which he yielded to force and was brought to the clinic.
The entire illness thus came to an end within three to four hours.