Among the metabolic disturbances in schizophrenia there occur in many cases symptoms which are the result of vasomotor instability or upset. The causation of this vasomotor instability is not known, and it may in turn be due to undiscovered metabolic disturbances.

In the following pages the use of electricity as an anaesthetic agent for man and animals is discussed. An attempt is made to assess the existing state of knowledge, but the issue is a complex one, and there are many gaps and contradictions in the story. Attention is later given to the now familiar use of electricity for the supposedly humane destruction of animals, in particular the pig, dog and cat, and these practices examined in the light of the reliable evidence.

The study of moderate degrees of alcoholic intoxication in such an animal as the rat demands methods of assessment of the state of the animals, which is a requirement not easy to provide. So far as the more complex integrated activity of the central nervous system is concerned, the use of a suitable maze affords some information of an objective kind. The book by Warden and others (1935) gives much information about construction and operation of mazes. Methods of recording based on projection by a lens (Yerkes and Kellog 1914; Watson, 1914) and the use of electrical contacts (Tolman and Jeffress 1925; Heron, 1933) have been described for rat mazes, while Miles (1928) has suggested the use of blotting-paper in conjunction with an ink writer to show relative speeds within a maze.

It has long been known that remissions of varying degree and duration may occur in chronic mental states as a result of acute febrile intercurrent disease, and many attempts have been made to produce such an acute febrile reaction by artificial means, with a view to improving the mental condition thereby.

It is an acknowledged fact that in the whole annals of mankind the most eventful period of a nation's psychology is that during which its people is passing through the crisis of war, and the history of nations, from the earliest dawn of society, presents continuous records of warlike operations. The present war, which has already lasted over two and a half years and which is without any immediate prospect of cessation, has disturbed the mind and altered the course of life of whole continents; yet all of us are agreed that it should never be possible for this “malady of princes” to occur again, and it is with the view of preventing its recurrence that civilisation (which means the united culture of all the Allies as well as of the “benevolent” neutrals) is now making a final and intense effort.

Abnormalities of sex chromosomes are associated with various forms of neuropsychiatric disorder, and Polani (1969) has reviewed the literature. While there were numerous reports associating the XXY and XXX constitutions with psychiatric disorder, the position was somewhat different with regard to Turner's syndrome. The purpose of this paper is to describe a patient who was shown to have the clinical pattern of Turner's Syndrome and an XO/XX/XXX mosaic chromosome pattern, and who presented with a schizophrenic illness.

There is a large body of research that has established change in reaction time as one of the major psychological performance deficits in schizophrenia (Shakow, 1963). In addition to consistent differences between patients and normals, relationships have been reported (Rosenthal, Lawlor, Zahn and Shakow, 1960) between general severity of illness and reaction time within a group of chronic schizophrenics. More recently, Zahn and Rosenthal (1963) have shown that acute schizophrenics also perform deficiently in reaction time; they hold an intermediate position between normal subjects and chronic schizophrenic patients. Shakow (1963) reports that in some of the earlier work with chronic patients “paranoids” tended to show little, if any, reaction time deficit, but that it was the hebephrenic patients who performed poorly. Thus it seems unlikely that reaction time is a general measure of deficit in schizophrenia, since available evidence shows it to be related to chronicity (in terms of duration of illness), general severity of illness, and schizophrenic subtype. The deficit reflected in reaction time has been characterized by Shakow (1963) in terms of associative interference. That is, the schizophrenic is distracted by “irrelevant aspects of the stimulus surroundings—inner and outer—which prevent his focusing on the ‘to-be-responded-to’ stimulus”.

The idea of a triggering effect in schizophrenia emphasises the role of life events as precipitating factors which act on an individual's specific predisposition towards the illness (Wing, 1978).

Forty-five in-patients, with primary diagnoses of neurosis or personality disorder, completed the test cards and booklet versions of the Symptom Rating Test—Day (SRT). In order to facilitate retroactive interference the Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS) and the Maudsley Personality Inventory (MPI) were administered between the two forms of the SRT. On the next day the patients were given the SRT (Week). The initial SRT, MAS and MPI testing was repeated one week later.

On the assumption that positional set is an important consideration predictions were made as to the expected differences between the test cards and booklet modes of SRT administration.

The results add support to the practical use of the SRT in its more recent standardized format.

Ninety-eight matched pairs of patients treated respectively on first admission in a general hospital psychiatric unit or a psychiatric hospital have been followed-up for from five to eight years. The periods of treatment received in either setting remained comparable, and only 3 per cent of patients were in-patients or day patients at five years, while 14 per cent were out-patients and 20 per cent attended their family doctor. There was no evidence in these patients of a transfer of chronicity to the psychiatric hospital, but patients with longer periods of treatment were noted to change hospital from both the general hospital unit to the psychiatric hospital, and in the reverse direction.

One hundred and sixty Scottish psychiatrists complete a questionnaire eliciting the extent of their use of the term ‘borderline patient’ and the factors affecting this. The term was used by 27.5 per cent, the majority of whom felt that it ought to be included in current diagnostic classification systems. There was, however, general dissatisfaction with the vagueness of current definitions of the term and a confusing use of numerous diagnostic labels.

Use of the term was not related to status, geographical location, or familiarity with American psychiatric literature. The practice of psychodynamically-oriented psychotherapy and extended working contact with psychiatry in North America were found significantly to increase its use.

In the preceding paper the effect of experimental distraction was examined and the findings discussed. The present report is concerned with a similar study of the effect of distraction on tests which involve another aspect of schizophrenic performance, that of psychomotor ability. Earlier studies (Chapman and McGhie, 1961, 1962) produced both clinical and experimental evidence that auditory distraction disrupted the motor responses of some schizophrenic patients. As the previous experimental findings were based on two tests involving only very limited areas of psychomotor performance, it was necessary to examine patients on a wide range of psychomotor tests. A second aim of the present investigation was to assess any differential effects due to variation in the sensory modality of the distracting stimuli.

The aim of the study reported here was to develop psychotherapeutic in-patient treatment for acute schizophrenia, following the principles of a need-adapted approach. To improve the integration of experiences which hospital staff have with acutely psychotic patients and their families, systematic supervision sessions were organised. In these sessions, it was possible to achieve shared psychological images through which the whole staff could integrate patients' behaviour and symptoms, both symbolic and non-symbolic. Such an image was called ‘the shared image guiding the treatment process’ (SIGTP). The process of achieving the SIGTP was interpreted through Peircean semiotics, especially the concepts of indexical, iconic, and symbolical signs. An SIGTP was considered to have been achieved in the early phase of the supervision process in 32 of the 54 cases. For the patients, SIGTP and the need-adaptation connected with it meant achieving a more realistic and more functional ordering of their experiences.

We have presented a case of folie à deux in which the wife was the primary (dominant) partner and the husband the secondary (submissive) partner. The husband's symptoms seemed to have resolved as his dependency shifted from his wife back to his mother. Treatment is recommended by deliberately shifting dependencies only when there is advantage in doing so. For most patients, the aim should be independence.