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Laboratory Aids to Diagnosis in Mental Diseases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

P. K. McCowan*
Affiliation:
West Park Mental Hospital, Epsom

Extract

For some time past there has been an increasing use of laboratory methods in the diagnosis of mental disorders. The following aims at offering further proof of the undoubted value of this method of approach in such cases. There seems, however, to be a growing tendency, not devoid of danger, to ascribe diagnostic specificity to one or other of the many tests in use for such examinations. Although it is undoubtedly true that an exhaustive analysis of a spinal fluid may in many cases lead to a correct diagnosis of the clinical condition of the patient from whom the specimen has been taken, it only requires a study of the literature to show that none of the reactions or group of reactions obtained from the spinal fluid can be regarded as pathognomonic of any disease of the central nervous system.

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1925 

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