Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ws8qp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T06:12:05.965Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Note on Urinary Reactions in Relation to Intestinal Toxæmia in Psychotic Subjects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

S. A. Mann
Affiliation:
Central Pathological Laboratory of the London County Mental Hospitals
H. L. Shipp
Affiliation:
Central Pathological Laboratory of the London County Mental Hospitals

Extract

Within the last year a series of papers has been issued (1, 2, 3) from this laboratory indicating that in the psychotic there exists a disturbed regulation of the respiratory mechanism for the control of acid-base equilibrium, which, in the cases examined, mainly depressed psychoses, manifested itself as an inexcitability of the respiratory centre, shown by a failure of response to CO2 stimulation. The work was done on uncertified borderline cases of insanity; it has since been confirmed by Marsh (4) on certified patients, and his results in 73 cases confirm the original findings and indicate plainly that dementia præcox and depressive psychoses fall into a group showing a variable inexcitability of the respiratory centre. The question naturally arises whether this condition is a cause or an effect of the mental state, and, from the point of view of cause, whether it is due to the drug-like action of some substance arising from faulty metabolism, or is an exhaustion effect. The question of intestinal toxæmia obviously needs investigation in this respect. This subject has been freely discussed in the literature and its significance becomes of greater importance in relation to psychoses owing to the work of Buscaino (5, 6) and Scheiner (7, 8) in Italy, and of Stewart (9) in this country. Buscaino describes a reaction of the urine with silver nitrate in certain psychotic cases, alcoholic insanities and dementia præcox, and from this assumes the existence of a toxic substance from liver derangement in these cases. He further describes lesions of the small intestine of mental patients which may result in undue permeability of its walls; it is not proposed to discuss this latter aspect of his work, but to deal with his silver nitrate reaction.

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1929 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Mann, S. A., Morris, R. W., and Rowe, G. K., Journ. Ment. Sci., 1928, lxxiv, p. 425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Mann, S. A., and Marsh, R. G. B., Journ. Ment. Sci., p. 436.Google Scholar
3 Golia, F., Mann, S. A., and Marsh, R. G. B., Journ. Ment. Sci., p. 443 Google Scholar
4 Marsh, R. G. B., Lancet, 1929, i, p. 1032.Google Scholar
5 Buscaino, V. M., Rivista di Pat. Nerv. e Mentale, 1922, xxvii, p. 178.Google Scholar
6 Buscaino, V. M., Rivista di Pat. Nerv. e Mentale, 1925, xxx, p. 178.Google Scholar
7 Scheiner, E., Rivista di Pat. Nerv. e Mentale, 1927, xxxii, p. 544.Google Scholar
8 Scheiner, E., Rivista di Pat. Nerv. e Mentale, 1928, xxxiii, p. 298.Google Scholar
9 Stewart, F. H., Journ. Ment. Sci., 1929, lxxv, p. 53.Google Scholar
10 Tripi, G. J., Rivista di Pat. Nerv. e Mentale, 1926, xxxi, p. 644.Google Scholar
11 Graziani, A., Rivista di Psich., 1924, xii, p. 218.Google Scholar
12 D'Arbela, , Riv. crit. di clin. med., 1922, xxix, p. 337.Google Scholar
13 Mueller, A., Schwein. med. Wochenschr., 1924, iv, p. 15.Google Scholar
14 Barbieri, , Biochim. e terap. sperim., 1924, f. 6, p. 131.Google Scholar
15 Bettzieche, and Thomas, , Munch. med. Wochenschr., 1924, lxxi, p. 285.Google Scholar
16 Koessler, and Hanke, , Journ. Biol. Chem., 1919, xxxix, p. 538.Google Scholar
17 Guggenheim, and Loeffler, , Biochem. Zeitschr., 1916, lxxii, p. 352.Google Scholar
18 Novello, Wolf and Sherwin, , Amer. Journ. Med. Sci., 1925, clxx, p. 888.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19 Stewart, F. H., Journ. Ment. Sci., 1928, lxxiv, p. 416.Google Scholar
20 Ross, , Arch. Int. Med., 1913, xii, p. 112.Google Scholar
21 Jolles, , Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 1914, lxxxvii, p. 310; and Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 1915, xciv, p. 79.Google Scholar
22 Herter, , Bacterial Infections of the Digestive Tract, New York, 1907.Google Scholar
23 Alvarez, , Phys. Rev., 1924, iv, p. 352.Google Scholar
24 Hurst, , Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 1913, vi, p. 163.Google Scholar
25 Mutch, N., Lancet, 1929, i, p. 1034.Google Scholar
26 Katzenelbogen, S., Amer. Journ. Psychiat., 1929, viii, p. 1021.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.