Basket case

We now use the phrase "basket case" to refer to someone whose emotional state is so disturbed that he or she is unable to function; however, it was originally used in reference to a soldier who had lost all four limbs, a quadruple amputee who supposedly had to be transported in a basket rather than on a stretcher.

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the first use of the phrase "basket case" to a 1919  "official bulletin" by the U.S. government:

(U.S. Comm. on Public Information) 28 Mar. 1/1 The Surgeon General of the Army..denies..that there is any foundation for the stories that have been circulated..of the existence of ‘*basket cases’ in our hospitals.

The phrase is defined in a 1944 edition of Yank magazine:

12 May 17 Maj. Gen. Norman T. Kirk, Surgeon General, says there is nothing to rumors of so-called ‘basket cases’ cases of men with both legs and both arms amputated.

Both of these statements may well have been true. There were only two cases of quadruple amputation in all of WWII -- and only four in the Korean War. So it is not surprising that as Phrase Finder points out, "the term was never used to describe anyone - only in order to deny that any such servicemen existed."

I have no idea if "baskets" were ever used to transport the disabled during the WWI era when the phrase "basket case" gained currency, but wicker was used in the manufacture of wheelchairs, as shown in this photo of General Dan Sickles:

General Sickles was a bit of a psychological basket case himself, at least when it came to a cheating wife. As Penny Richards of Disability Studies -- Temple U blog writes:

Daniel Sickles (1819-1914) was a Union general in the Civil War. Before the war, he was a lawyer in New York City, and a US Congressman; in 1859, while he was a member of Congress, he killed his wife's lover, but was acquitted of the crime, in what is remembered as "the first use of the insanity defense in US history." Though he had no military experience, he was a successful recruiter for the Union Army, and was made a general in 1861. At the Battle of Gettysburg, he lost his leg to a cannonball injury. He had his shattered legbone preserved and donated to the Army Medical Museum, where he is rumored to have visited it annually.

Thanks to Hood for suggesting the topic.

Comments

[Hoodlumman]

Thanks, Gail.

The possible roots at Gen. Sickles makes sense to me.