he patient was
feigning insanity.

The patient's version of the circumstances which led to this last
admission is as follows: He was reported to the commanding officer by
a guard for some alleged minor infraction of discipline, of which he
claims not to have been guilty. After the guard was through making
his report the patient asked the commanding officer whether this
alleged offense would prevent his release in July of this year, as he
had been promised if he conducted himself well. The officer replied
that it certainly would, upon hearing which he could not restrain
himself, became quite overwhelmed with anger, and struck the guard who
reported him. His behavior which necessitated his readmission took
place following this episode. The patient dwells upon the fact that
prior to this episode he behaved in an excellent manner under the
prison regime for about four months, and that during his sojourn there
he was practically a model prisoner, which was true.

He certainly has manifested no signs of mental disorder during his
present admission, and still insists that he malingered all of the
symptoms which led to his former two admissions because he feared more
punishment at the hands of the naval authorities unless he was
considered insane.

_Anamnesis._--The patient comes from a family of farmers in mediocre
circumstances. Grandparents are in Bohemia, and he knows nothing
concerning them. Father died of Bright's disease; was alcoholic.
Otherwise family history negative.

Patient is uncertain about the time and place of birth, but believes
he is about thirty years of age at present. He entered school at seven
or eight, but proved to be a confirmed truant, and his father finally
had to take him out of school entirely. He was in the habit of running
away from home and school, to wander about the country, where he would
stop at different farm houses, claiming he was an orphan and without a
home, until his father would discover him and bring him back home.
After giving up school definitely he worked as a farm hand, earning
the ordinary wages paid for this labor. He changed places frequently,
was a spendthrift, and assisted his parents financially very little.
This mode of existence he led until 1904, when he forged his father's
name to a $25 check and received a five-year term of imprisonment,
part of which he spent in the Minnesota State Reformato