228 Freeman, Pincus, Ei.madjian and Romanoff 



Table 

 Means of Basai, Valuks i'ok Urinary Constituents Kon 



N.B. Raised figures represent luiniber of tests. 



potassium values are higher in the young patients than in 

 the young normals, but not in the old patients. The cortin 

 values arc lower in the young patients than in the opposing 

 group, but there is no essential difference between the two 

 groups in the old population. The uric acid values are essenti- 

 ally the same for the two groups for corresponding ages. The 

 percentage changes show that with increasing age, decreasing 

 excretion appears in approximately the same proportion in 

 the normal and schizophrenic groups in the creatinine, 17- 

 ketosteroids, uric acid and phosphates. The cortins show no 

 decrease in the patients, an indication possibly that this 

 portion of the adrenal cortex is functioning at a low level 

 consistently throughout life. The sodium and potassium 

 decrease more in the patients than in the normal subjects, 

 primarily because of their higher values in youth. Thus, it is 

 only in the corticosteroids and minerals that advancing age 

 affects the schizophrenic subject differently from the normal 

 subject. 



It is evident from the percentage changes that ageing could 

 not be expressed with the creatinine ratios, since, with the 

 exception of the 17-ketosteroids, the creatinine decrease is 

 sufhcient in magnitude to nullify or even reverse the tendency 

 to a (iecreasino excretion with aoe. 



