BASAL METABOLISM IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

Abstract

The fact that more than one sixth of all hospital beds in the United States are devoted to victims of schizophrenia would seem to constitute this disorder the most insistent problem now confronting the medical profession. That it is receiving study, however, comparable in quantity or quality to that devoted to several disorders numerically less important can scarcely be maintained. When one considers the extent of present day medical research on such conditions as diabetes or cancer, it is astonishing that schizophrenia is relatively so much neglected. A comparison of any of the standard monographs on diabetes and on schizophrenia, for instance, brings out a remarkable discrepancy in the knowledge of the physical and metabolic conditions in the two disorders. One of the most significant criteria of the functional state of the patient is his basal rate of oxygen consumption. Although the basal metabolism in persons with schizophrenia has been