PROGNOSIS AND TREATMENT

Abstract

OBSERVATIONAL and photographically recorded data showed that flexibilitas cerea, which was present in two stuporose dementia praecox patients, disappeared with the onset of sleep. The motility of these two which was very low during the waking state became much greater during sleep, approaching, though not reaching, the range to be expected from normal sleepers. Three others who exhibited the waxy state during waking hours showed similar relaxation during sleep. Eight non-cataleptic dementia proecox patients showed no marked change between the waking and sleep state in similar records of motility. Their sleeping motility was quite comparable to that of the healthy normal individual. The author's results indicate that studies of experimental catalepsy which attempt to explain the waxy state in dementia precox must provide a ' functional ' mechanism so that the quick reversibility at the onset or end of sleep is accounted for. On the basis of present knowledge, it seems safe to say that activity of either cortical or lower brain centres must be directly or indirectly responsible for the occurrence of flexibilitas cerea in stuporous catatonic dementia praecox patients. Future studies of experimental catalepsy in animals might well include a determination of the effect on the catalepsy of the stimulation of the sleep centres. If the elimination of the catalepsy by such stimulation occurred, it would be a criterion for the identification of experimentally produced catalepsy with that occurring in stuporous dementia preecox patients. C. S. R.