Serological Distinction Between Functional Psychoses

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to confirm our previous observations ^2-5,7 that sera of some psychiatric patients contain higher than normal macroglobulin levels and that schizophrenic and manic-depressive patients' sera may be differentiated by the higher macroglobulin content of the one and the lower amount in the other.⁹ The earlier studies, on sera of schizophrenic and manic-depressive patients at two separate hospitals in California, were not all made blindly. For complete assurance that the findings were valid, the present examinations were made on coded sera obtained from carefully studied patients in Chicago. Materials and Methods Subjects. —We studied 13 manic-depressive and 14 schizophrenic patients at Evanston Hospital, Chicago. All were outpatients except for two schizophrenic subjects, and all except three were personal patients of one of us (R.P.C.) who had followed most of them for several years. At the time of the drawing of their blood, the patients