EXCHANGE TRANSFUSION IN SCHIZOPHRENIC PATIENTS1

Abstract

The hypothesis that a substance circulating in the blood is responsible for the symptomatology of schizophrenia was tested by means of exchange transfusions. The patients consisted of a 5 and 1/2-year-old autistic child and 3 chronically ill male adults who had, respectively, paranoid, hebephrenic, and catatonic schizophrenia. The status of the adults remained the same. The child may have improved slightly. The extent of the improvement was not enough to exclude nonspecific factors. The humoral theory is not supported, but neither can it be said to have been invalidated by these observations.