COMPARATIVE STUDY OF METRAZOL TREATMENT AND CONTROL OBSERVATIONS OF SCHIZOPHRENIA

The convulsive treatment of schizophrenia introduced by Meduna aroused great interest, and numerous reports have appeared in the literature. Meduna 1 originally claimed 99.6 per cent of remissions in cases of psychosis of less than six months' duration, 84 per cent in those of eighteen months' duration and 64.28 per cent in those of less than five years' duration. Sorger and Hofmann 2 obtained remissions in 76.3 per cent of cases of psychosis of six months' duration, in 53.8 per cent of cases of psychosis of not more than one year's duration and in 26.5 per cent of cases of psychosis of over one year's duration. Scheuhammer and Wissgott 3 reported remissions in 69 per cent of cases of illness for one and one-half years or less. Friedman 4 claimed "definitely remissive changes" in 31 (77.5 per cent) of 40 cases of psychosis which had lasted from a month to