IS HEREDITY A CAUSATIVE FACTOR IN THE MANIC- 

 DEPRESSIVE PSYCHOSES? 



HORATIO M. POLLOCK, BENJAMIN MALZBERG and RAYMOND G. FULLER 



State Department of Mental Hygiene, Albany, New York 



Although several comprehensive studies on the inheritance of mental 

 diseases have appeared in recent years, the problem is far from solution. 

 There is no general agreement as to the fact or manner of such inheritance 

 or as to the relation of mental disease to other mental abnormalities in the 

 composition of a so-called neuropathic taint. The whole matter is so in- 

 volved that years of investigation will be required to reach satisfactory 

 conclusions. 



This paper is a preliminary note on a study of heredity as an etiological 

 factor in the manic-depressive psychoses. As the more detailed analysis 

 is still under way, the views herein set forth are but tentative. The analysis 

 is part of a larger study of causative factors in the manic-depressive psy- 

 choses. The latter study is in turn part of a larger program of research 

 undertaken jointly by the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene 

 and the State Charities Aid Association in 1928, with the financial assistance 

 of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Fund. This financial grant made possible 

 a three-year investigation of the social significance of the prevalence of 

 mental disease in the State of New York. 



In this study of causative factors in mental disease the reliability of the 

 data was carefully checked by field workers who interviewed relatives and 

 other interested individuals. The cases under investigation included first 

 admissions with manic-depressive psychoses admitted to the Utica State 

 Hospital in the three years, 1928, 1929 and 1930. Aside from the matter 

 of diagnosis, no other selective factor was at work in the choice of cases for 

 study. The Utica State Hospital was chosen as the locus of the investi- 

 gation, because its admission district includes a population more accessible 

 to investigation than that of a metropolitan district in which the population 

 shifts rapidly and where it is therefore often difficult to trace family histories. 



The schedule used in the investigation called for information concerning 

 the mental and physical health of the father and mother prior to the birth 

 of the patient; the health record of the paternal and maternal grandparents; 

 the economic condition of the parents and their social life during the pa- 



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