PSYCHOSIS RESULTING FROM BARBITURATE WITHDRAWAL

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Abstract
There have been scattered reports of the addicting property of barbiturate drugs and the serious symptoms produced by their abrupt withdrawal. With the excellent work of Isbell and co-workers,1the concept of barbiturate addiction and of the barbiturate withdrawal syndrome has become more specific. The use of barbiturate drugs as a supplement to or as a substitute for narcotics in drug addicts has been frequently observed. Hewitt2recently reported three cases occurring among patients in mental hospitals specializing in the treatment of narcotic addiction. Barbiturate addicts are admitted to state hospitals relatively infrequently. Unless physicians attending such patients are constantly alert to the possibility, the diagnosis of barbiturate addiction may be overlooked or dangerously delayed. The purpose of this paper is to report the cases of two barbiturate addicts who were admitted to a state hospital. For the first patient, the history of excessive use of barbiturates over

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