Jack Kerouac's Medical Records Released

Posted on June 10, 2005

Jack Kerouac inspired the Beat Generation with his poetry and prose. Best remembered for his book On the Road, Kerouac's newly-released Navy records indicate mental instability. The records are part of newly-declassified National Archives.

Kerouac's enlistment lasted 10 months. He died at the age of 47 after alcohol had consumed his life and destroyed his liver. Kerouac's intense personality is evident in his medical records.
According to records, Kerouac enlisted in the Navy on Aug. 12, 1942, during World War II, at the age of 20. It took him less than a year to land in a naval hospital in Newport, R.I., where a doctor wrote that he had been diagnosed with "dementia praecox," an antiquated term for schizophrenia.
Kerouac didn't agree with the diagnosis. "As far as I'm concerned," he's quoted in the record, "I get nervous in an emotional way. ... I don't hear voices talking to me from no where but I have a photographic picture before my eyes. When I go to sleep and I hear music playing. I know I shouldn't have told the psychiatrist that, but I wanted to be frank."
On June 26, 1943, a sparse medical entry shows a doctor evaluated him "unsuitable." He was discharged two days later.

It's interesting that Kerouac disagreed with the schizophrenia diagnosis and correctly identified that the fact he didn't hear voices (a main diagnostic element of the disease) may have made that diagnosis incorrect. Most biographers agree that Kerouace suffered from alcholism and perhaps depression and/or anxiety. In any event, he was a great talent who clearly suffered for his art.