BRAIN TUMORS AS SEEN IN HOSPITALS FOR THE INSANE

Abstract

It is not a rare experience for the pathologist in a hospital for the insane to find at necropsy a brain tumor undiagnosed during life. The objects of this paper are to inquire into the reasons for the lack of diagnosis, and to find out whether the group of brain tumor cases in hospitals for the insane presents any special characteristics as to symptomatology, age or stage of disease on admission, which would distinguish them from cases in general hospitals. All brain tumor cases coming to necropsy during the past ten years in the Boston, Danvers, Taunton, Westboro and Worcester State Hospitals and the Psychopathic Hospital were studied, as were also single cases at the Medfield, Foxboro, Bridgewater and Northampton State Hospitals. Gummas were excluded. The histories and necropsy protocols of forty-six cases thus collected were studied, and in most instances the brains were examined in frontal sections. In about