An Investigation of Autonomic Balance in Tuberculous Patients

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Abstract
The present study was designed to answer the question: Does autonomic nervous system function in tuberculous patients differ from that found in other groups? One hundred and five tuberculous in-patient and out-patient subjects were given autonomic tests during a resting state and during and after response to a modified cold pressor stimulus. This report involves the resting data only. No major differences were found between in-patient and out-patient subjects on discrete autonomic variables or autonomic factor (A) scores. Autonomic nervous system function in the tuberculous differed from that reported for other groups. Comparisons of means of discrete autonomic variables for tuberculous patients with those for normal, psychoneurotic, schizophrenic, peptic ulcer, cancer, and postoperative vagotomy groups discovered statistically significant differences in each instance. Comparisons of mean tuberculous (A) scores with those from normal, schizophrenic, peptic ulcer, cancer and postoperative vagotomy groups showed that they differ significantly from all except the schizophrenics by manifesting an apparent sympathetic dominance.

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