METRAZOL SHOCK TREATMENT OF THE "FUNCTIONAL" PSYCHOSES

Abstract

It is said that patients with schizophrenia are not liable to convulsions and that epileptic patients have no tendency to exhibit extreme types of schizophrenic behavior. Glaus¹in a study of 6,000 patients with schizophrenia at the psychiatric clinic at Zurich, Switzerland, found only 8 who had epilepsy. Steiner and Strauss²reported a somewhat higher ratio for the material at the clinic at Heidelberg, Germany. This relative incompatibility of the epileptic and the schizophrenic condition was the starting point for Meduna's³endeavor to fight schizophrenic symptoms with production of epileptiform convulsions. Neither Meduna nor the other authors mentioned attempted to correlate the frequency of epilepsy among schizophrenic patients and its incidence in the general population. Grinker⁴placed the frequency of epilepsy "at approximately two per thousand of the population." He continued: The army statistics... show that in this country at the time of the World War,