A RETROSPECT OF MODERN PSYCHIATRY. 
3 
We read that in 1893 Kirchoff considered “the development of the 
disease is favoured by the noxious influences inherent in the agitated 
life of recent times. ’ ’ 
The view that syphilis was responsible was strengthened by the 
application of the Bordet-Gengou or Wasserman Reaction and was 
ultimately confirmed when in 1913 Naguchi and Moore demonstrated 
the presence of spirochaetes in the brains of general paralytics. 
It will be seen that a period of 90 years elapsed between the 
recognition of the disease entity and the elucidation of its aetiology. 
Although the proven remedies for syphilis were employed with 
many variations, including the arsenicals “606” and later derivatives 
of the Erhlich and Hata discoveries, the curative results were entirely 
fruitless. A diagnosis of General Paralysis still remained the equivalent 
of a death sentence. 
The first rays indicating the dawn of therapeutic success were 
ushered in in 1917 when publicity was given to the success of Wagner 
von Jauregg in treating this disease by inoculating his patients with 
malaria. Many years earlier he had suggested the use of fever for the 
treatment of this disease. This suggestion was based on the quite 
common observation that a patient suffering from mental disorders 
frequently had a remission of symptoms in the course of or following an 
intercurrent febrile disorder. 
VICTORY THROUGH HEAT. 
At first we thought that the malarial infection had a specific 
antagonism to the spirochaete of syphilis. Later it was shown that 
equally beneficial results were obtained by other methods for inducing 
high temperatures. A wide variety was used including relapsing fever, 
typhoid inoculations and bacterial products. Later (in 1930) pyrexia 
was induced by diathermy and air-conditioned chambers. Finally the 
property of the electric short wave (25 metres) was used. 
It now seems obvious that the curative agency is heat, ,,in that a 
temperature of 106° F. is fatal to the spirochaete. 
It is interesting to reflect that Louis Pasteur discovered the delicate 
relationship between organisms and the temperature of the medium in 
which they live during experiments with Anthrax. He noticed that 
the bacillus can he grown in cultures only with great difficulty at 
temperatures of 43° C. or 44° C. It occurred to him that this might 
be the explanation for the known immunity of fowls from anthrax. 
The normal temperature of fowls is 42° C. On March 19th, 1878, 
Pasteur demonstrated two fowls which had been plunged into the same 
bath at 25° C. One was inoculated with 5 drops of an anthrax culture. 
It contracted the disease and died whereas its control companion suffered 
nc disability. 
Here we see a hint on a direct approach on the therapeutics 
of infection yet it was only applied many years after publication. 
This story of victory over disease by heat illustrates the inter- 
relationship of the science in which the biologist and the chemist have 
played a prominent part. We might emphasize the place of the physicist. 
The story of the evolution of wireless is familiar to most. Even the 
comparatively young will remember Marconi's conquest of the Atlantic 
and the arrest of Crippen as a dramatic result of this new method of 
