Mental diseases: a public health problemMay, James Vance
Science
Mental diseases: a public health problem
May, James Vance
Mental health services; Psychology, Pathological
In several patients Sandy found a symptom complex strongly suggestive
of general paresis, thus confirming the findings of other observers.
These showed speech and writing defects, absent or sluggish pupillary
reaction, swaying in the Romberg position, altered deep reflexes,
disorientation, memory disorders and other evidences of deterioration.
The Wassermann reactions were negative in both the blood and spinal
fluid tests and no lymphocytosis was shown on cell counts. These
cases he thinks belong in the infective exhaustive group, and
usually die of central neuritis, a condition already referred to and
described originally by Turner and Meyer. Sandy also found pellagra
associated with various senile psychoses. This group constituted ten
per cent of those studied. Fourteen per cent of the series he left
unclassified owing to lack of history, etc. Some of these showed
simple deterioration, others suggested neurasthenia, and some, general
paresis. Of the remaining cases three were epileptic imbeciles,
three, constitutional inferiority with episodes of some kind, and
three were not insane. Cases associated with chorea and hysteria
were also observed. On analyzing these most important findings the
assumption would seem to be warranted that pellagra is an incident
in certain psychoses—(senility and dementia praecox), that it is a
precipitating factor in certain cases (manic-depressive), and that the
characteristic conditions due to the disease are toxic and assume the
infective-exhaustive form, occasionally simulating general paresis.
The policy of the Association's committee on statistics in the
differentiation of these conditions is shown by the following quotation
on this subject from the last edition of the manual:—
"The relation which various mental disturbances bear to the disease
pellagra is not yet settled. Cases of pellagra occurring during the
course of a well established mental disease such as dementia praecox,
manic-depressive insanity, senile dementia, etc., should not be
included in this group. The mental disturbances which are apparently
most intimately connected with pellagra are certain delirious or
confused states (toxic-organ-like reactions) arising during the course
of a severe pellagra. These are the cases which for the present should
be placed in the group of psychoses with pellagra."
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