402 ALBERT S, MORACZEWSKI 



eight hours the symptoms ordinarily disappear.*^ No claim is 

 made here that a true psychosis can be duplicated by the 

 use of this drug. In fact, schizophrenic patients who have 

 taken LSD state that the experiences induced by the drug 

 are different from their own schizophrenia. To date, many 

 experimental attempts have been made to isolate particular 

 biochemical changes which induce the observed effects. How- 

 ever, no certain conclusion has yet been reached.** 



The third and final category of metabolic disorders leading 

 to abnormal behavior is a miscellany. In the other classes, the 

 disorder was traced either (1) to a congenital defect involving 

 an absence or a malfunction of an enzyme or hormone, or (2) 

 to what was called, for want of a better term, " an acquired 

 mteabolic disorder " resulting from a nutritional deficiency or 

 from ingestion of a chemical substance. Although these first 

 two classes can account for some of the emotional and mental 

 diseases, they cannot, at present, account for the psycho- 

 pathological conditions known as " functional psychoses." It 

 has been suggested in the past and again more recently that 

 schizophrenia, for example, is the result of an abnormal meta- 

 bolism producing a toxic (neuro- or psychotoxic) substance.*'^ 

 Presumably in such an explanation, the symptomology of the 

 disease would be traced to the action of the endogenous toxic 

 compound, whereas the metabolic error producing the " psycho- 

 poison " would be the disease itself. 



** A. Wikler, The Relation of Psychiaty to Pharmacology (Baltimore: Williams 

 & Wilkins, 1957) , pp. 69-70. 



** H. Hoagland, "A Review of Biochemical Changes Induced In Vivo by Lysergic 

 Acid Diethylamide and Similar Drugs," Annals of the Neio York Academy of 

 Science, LXVI (1957) , 445-458; J. A. Bain, "A Review of the Biochemical Effects 

 In Vitro of Certain Psychomimetic Agents," Annals of the New York Academy of 

 Sciences, LXVI (1957) , 459-467. 



*^ H. Osmond, " Chemical Concepts of Psychosis (Historical Contributions) ," in 

 M. Rinkel and H. C. B. Denber, ed., Chemical Concepts of Psychosis (New York: 

 McDowell & Obolensky, 1958), pp. 3-26; R. G. Heath, "Physiological and Bio- 

 chemical Studies in Schizophrenia with Particular Emphasis on Mind-Brain Rela- 

 tionships," in C. C. Pfeiffer and J. R. Smythies, International Review of Neuro- 

 biology (New York: Academic Press, 1959), I, 299-331. 



