ON THE TOPOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF CORTEX LESIONS AND ANOMALIES IN DEMENTIA PRÆCOX, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THEIR FUNCTIONAL SIGNIFICANCE

Abstract

1. The writer has followed up his earlier work on the dementia praecox group (1910) with a more systematic anatomoclinical study of 25 cases, having a view to (a) definite conclusions as to the structurality (organic nature) of the disease, and (b) correlation of certain major symptom groups (delusions, catatonic symptom groups, auditory hallucinosis) with disease of particular brain regions. 2. As to (a), the structuratity of dementia prœcox, the writer feels that the disease must be conceded to be in some sense structural, since at least 90 per cent of all cases examined (50 cases, data of 1910 and 1914) give evidence of general or focal brain atrophy or aplasia when examined post mortem, even without the use of the microscope. 3. Moreover, with the use of the microscope, the problem of the normal-looking remainder can perhaps be solved, since the only two normal-looking brains7 in the 1914 series of 25 yielded abundant appearances of cell-destruction and satellitosis in the cerebral cortex, which had ...