A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE “ACTH TEST”: CHANGES IN THE EOSINOPHIL COUNT IN NORMAL AND IN PSYCHONEUROTIC SUBJECTS*

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Abstract
THE recent intense interest in the functional state of the adrenal cortex in morbid emotional conditions has led us to an investigation of the responses of normal and psychoneurotic subjects to single doses of ACTH.1 Utilizing the changes in the number of circulating eosinophils as an index, we have been unable to find any significant difference between the two groups tested. The eosinophil responses of the whole group demonstrated a degree of internal consistency which made it possible to conduct a statistical study of the responses in a population of 40 individuals. This study forms the subject of the present communication. SUBJECTS AND METHODS The distribution, by sex and diagnosis, of subjects chosen for study, is given in Table 1. The patients were all in-patients of the psychiatric ward of the Massachusetts General Hospital, admitted for the study and treatment of psychoneurosis. Symptoms of anxiety were slightly more common among the male subjects, and those of hysteria among the female subjects, but there was considerable overlapping. The normal control subjects were doctors, nurses, technicians, and students working in the hospital. They all had a good work record, and none had complained of any severe or moderately severe symptoms of psychoneurosis.