Own Study

Circumstances in history of patients

The following data on the subjects' physical history during infancy and childhood are based on information from the subjects, from their relatives, and from hospital records. Many years had passed since most of the patients were children, and it is quite possible that both the patients and the other informants had forgotten even serious accidents and illnesses during their childhood. But I did my best to obviate this by asking questions about specific conditions, especially about conditions just after birth, and about: children's diseases, fever affecting the general condition, fever convulsions, fever delirium, infections in the central nervous system, head injuries, concussion, convulsions and metabolic disorders.

Neonatal period. I use the word neonatal in the conventional sense, to cover the first two weeks after birth. The obstetric records gave a certain amount of information in this respect, as the children born in a hospital were generally kept there the first week. Nothing abnormal was noted during the first week for the 28 delivered in hospital, and nothing abnormal could be remembered about this period for the subjects delivered at home. Apparently, therefore, the first two weeks were free of complications, at least for the 28 subjects born in hospital, because anything abnormal in them when they left hospital would almost certainly have been noted in the record.

From 2 weeks to 3 years of age. The following data were confirmed by hospital records: One subject (case 1) was hospitalized under the diagnosis of hydrocephalus and tonsillitis. Later on, it was suspected that rickets might have caused the abnormal roentgenographic appearance of the skull leading to the hospitalization, but the roentgenographic findings here are still indefinite. One subject (case 36) was hospitalized at the age of two months under the diagnosis of dyspepsia and anemia; she recovered completely. One subject was hospitalized for concussion (case 13).

The following diseases did not lead to hospitalization and could therefore not be confirmed: One subject (case 8) had poliomyelitis according to relatives, which had disappeared without a trace. One subject (case 29) had severe scarlet fever, and his hair fell out afterward; this patient was slow in learning to talk. One patient (case 31) had severe measles complicated by fever convulsions. One subject (case 6) had cerebral concussion.

After 3 years of age. The following data were confirmed by hospital records: One subject (case 25) had severe concussion at about 8 years of age, followed by headache, dizziness, difficulty in concentration and hypersensitivity to noise for a few years; when he was 14 epilepsy of the grand mal type developed. One subject (case 15) got concussion at the age of 18; up to then he had developed normally psychosexually, bLit after the concussion, transsexualism set in, and grew steadily worse. One subject (case 13) got concussion and a small cranial fracture at the age of 7 and afterwards speech disorders developed. Another (case 17) got concussion and fracture of the femur at the age of 9; he was confused the first two days after the injury. Two subjects (cases 13 and 16) had diabetes mellitus; in I case (16) the disease started between the 3rd and 4th year, and this patient had had repeated attacks of either insulin or diabetic coma; in the other case (13) the diabetes was discovered at the age of 22. The patient in case 18 had facial tics at the age of 5, and he was examined at the age of 10 for a defect in the frontal bone. No signs of a tumor were seen, and the EEG, which was first abnormal, later grew normal.

One patient (case 33) was kept under observation for a long time at a department for child psychiatry, and the records state that she appeared to have attacks of petit mal, but they do not describe the attacks in sufficient detail for it to be possible to say definitely whether or not she had some form of epilepsy. While her electroencephalogram was being taken she got an epileptic fit on photostimulation. She showed no signs of epilepsy at any time during the week she was at our institute, however.

The other diseases and accidents the patients had had -a wide variety -had all happened while they were adults and after the transsexualism had started.