PREPSYCHOTIC MEASUREMENTS OF PHYSICAL AND MENTAL GROWTH IN A CASE OF JUVENILE DEMENTIA PARALYTICA

Abstract

Data relative to yearly increments of physical and mental growth in childhood of patients with juvenile dementia paralytica obtained before antisyphilitic treatment are not found in the literature. At the time of hospitalization one usually finds the patient to be retarded physically and intellectually and can only infer from the history that this retardation has been existent over a period of years before the overt manifestation of a psychosis. On the other hand, measurements of growth obtained after the diagnosis of the condition are probably affected by the treatment instituted. An opportunity to collect early developmental measurements of a patient with a condition later diagnosed and treated as juvenile dementia paralytica was afforded me. In 1922 the Harvard Graduate School of Education began a twelve year nonmedical study of 3,500 school children entering the first grade in three representative Massachusetts cities. Physical and mental measurements of these children were made