Intensive Cortisone Therapy in Schizophrenia

Abstract

Cortisone therapy has been claimed to produce favourable results in clinical schizophrenics (Cohn and Karnosh, 1951; Cohn et al., 1953). Rees and King (1952) carried out a controlled investigation on the effects of Cortisone given in moderate doses over a four-day period to a group of schizophrenic patients and found no significant changes in symptomatology, behaviour or in a series of psychological and physiological tests. In a personal communication Dr. Cohn suggested that Cortisone given in higher doses over a longer period would probably be therapeutically more effective in chronic schizophrenia. The present paper describes a controlled investigation into the therapeutic effects of Cortisone given in high dosage over a relatively prolonged period.