Physiological Effects of Schizophrenic Body Fluids

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Abstract
Controversy has raged for over half a century as to whether schizophrenia, the most severe of all mental illnesses, could have an organic basis or whether its origin lay strictly in the psyche. Over the years, physiologists have probed into almost every aspect of the soma in the quest for some abnormality which would account for the schizophrenic syndrome. Many possibilities have been considered, investigated to a degree and then abandoned when definitive answers were not forthcoming. A dominant approach throughout has been the search for some psychotoxic material circulating in schizophrenic body fluids. Activity has been spurred by the recurrent recognition that chemical agents such as the ergot alkaloids, mescaline, bulbocapnine and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25), could induce in normal persons transient mental disturbances similar to those seen in schizophrenia.