In the course of studying the clinical effects of LSD-25 various workers have commented upon its possible use as an aid to psychiatric diagnosis. Stoll (1947) and Becker (1949) considered it to be of limited value in this respect. Condrau (1949) pointed out that it tended to exaggerate catatonic and hebephrenic features in schizophrenics and to produce a caricature of the personality in normal subjects; the latter point also being made by Anderson and Rawnsley (1954). Von Felsinger et al. (1956) considered the primary psychological effect of the drug to be an exacerbation of existing symptomatology, through a weakening of central functions and defence systems.

Nearly half of those seen in a forensic service were offered some form of help, but it did not reliably match that requested. In 63% of court reports there was no specific treatment recommendation, but where there was, it was likely to be accepted. Only one-third of all outpatients completed the treatment offered – 40% of the lapses were due to imprisonment. One-third of out-patient treatments were conducted under conditions of probation orders, and this form of compulsion was associated with a significantly higher number of completed treatment plans. Personality disorder was also associated with more treatment completions. These and other findings are discussed to assist in an understanding of the service.

Two groups of patients admitted to psychiatric hospital in Dumfries were studied, drawn from the periods 1880–1889 and 1970–1979. Feighner criteria were applied to make three diagnostic categories – depression, mania and schizophrenia – and the occurrence and content of delusions were noted for each. A significant decline in the prevalence of delusional depressive illness was found between the two periods, and a similar trend was noted for delusional manic illness. In contrast, the prevalence of delusional schizophrenic illness was stable. This decline is taken to reflect a change in the phenomenology of affective illness since last century in South West Scotland. The content of delusions is also discussed.

As a contribution to an international pool, chromosomal analysis was carried out on 30 women with anorexia nervosa. The stimulus for this study was that during the last decade nine cases have been described of coincidence between Turner's syndrome and anorexia nervosa. Of the 30 women here examined, all had normal chromosomal constitution.

The effects of institutional environment have been recognized as constituting a major influence on the picture presented by chronic schizophrenic patients. These effects, and measures to mitigate them, have been described by May (1956), Freeman et al. (1958), Barton (1959) and others, and a review of the literature was made by Wing (1962). Many of these studies have suffered from the disadvantages that the degree of the patients' disability was not directly measured, and that the majority were not followed up over a reasonable period of time. This paper examines the results of environmental modification on a ward of severely disabled chronic schizophrenic patients over a period of four years. It also attempts to assess the effects of phenothiazine treatment on the behaviour of these patients.

In studying, during the last five years, the phenomena of Mind in the Lower Animals, I have encountered as great difficulty in drawing any definite or definable Psychical Line of Demarcation between Plants and the Lowest Animals as between the Higher Animals and Man. In other words, it appears to me that certain attributes of mind, as it occurs in Man, are common to Plants. The only alterative is the omission from our conceptions and definitions of Mind of certain phenomena common to plants with all classes of animals, including man—those, namely, that do not involve what we distinctively call consciousness. But the difficulties of such an elimination seem to me insuperable.

The literature on the subject of biochemical research in the psychoses is a vast one, and most of the problems met with in the study of mental diseases are still to be solved. It is evident, however, that these problems must be tackled from the physiogenic as well as from the psychogenic point of view; and it was with the object of examining the patient as thoroughly as possible from the physical standpoint that these investigations were carried out.

“A neuroendocrine hypothesis to explain the clinical activity of convulsive therapy is described. The hypothesis is based on the diabetes/insulin model and suggests that hypothalamic dysfunction with an insuffiency of a mood-maintaining peptide is the basis for affective disorders. Repeated seizures enhance the production and release of the hypothalamic peptide antidepressin – the active principle that relieves both neuroendocrine and behavioral abnormalities.”

The aim of the present study is to compare the mental health of children of schizophrenic mothers born before, during and after the onset of the mother's illness.