DISCUSSION 



Although it has long been recognized that there are mental 

 disturbances associated with endocrine changes such as menstrua- 

 tion and the menopause, still very little has been done to find a 

 definite correlation of special mental symptoms or groups of 

 symptoms with the physical disorders of the ductless glands. 

 So far as I am aware, this is the first serious attempt to psycho- 

 analyze a group of psychopathic endocrine patients and thereby 

 get a deeper insight into their mental condition than is ordinarily 

 given in previous attempts at correlation of mental disturbances 

 and endocrine disorders. While previous investigators have 

 often given excellent reports in great detail on the condition and 

 function of the ductless glands, their descriptions of mental symp- 

 toms have usually been meager and superficial. 



Wechsler 4 has been one of the few who have given better 

 pictures of the mental side, but even his article on the psycho- 

 neuroses and the internal secretions is more of a suggestion than 

 a thorough study. Barham 5 has given a psychoanalysis of a single 

 case of insanity with myxedema. After the myxedema had 

 been cured, the mental disturbances broke out anew as soon as 

 the patient returned to her former unfavorable environment. 



As a result of the present great interest in the endocrine 

 glands and their relation to the various functions of the organism, 

 they have been studied from many angles, and a number of 

 investigators have touched more or less on our phase of the 

 problem. Several of them have remarked that the adrenal and 

 sometimes the thyroid glands weighed less among the insane. 

 Mott 6 found the adrenals atrophied in many post mortem ex- 

 aminations but laid it to the physical disease that caused death 



4 Wechsler, I. S., The Psychoneuroses and the Internal Secretions, 

 Neurological Bulletin, vol. 2, number 199 (May, 1919). 



5 Barham, G. H., Insanity with Myxedema, Journal of Mental 

 Science, vol. 58, number 226 (1912). 



Mott, F. W., Suprarenal Glands in Nervous and Other Diseases, 

 Archives of Neurology (London), vol. 3, p. 123 (1907). 



119 



