This article is only available in the PDF format. Download the PDF to view the article, as well as its associated figures and tables.
The author seeks to establish a connection between the catatonic syndrome and lesions of the basal ganglions. The pathologic changes in these regions have not been thoroughly investigated in dementia praecox. The similarity in clinical pictures has already been commented on by many authors, notably Klippel, Widal, Bernadou, Claude, Mey, Koenig and Westphal, and in certain cases a differential diagnosis between parkinsonism and catatonia has been considered difficult, particularly when an accurate history is lacking. Bernadou has raised the question whether both conditions may not be due to the same neurotropic virus. Kleist has claimed that the hyperkinetic syndrome, which is not rare in catatonic dementia praecox, is due to an alteration in the extrapyramidal system, but the lesions he has distributed diffusely over frontal lobes, pons, corpus striatum, cerebellum, etc. The author's claim that almost all the extrapyramidal symptoms of postencephalitic parkinsonism have been observed in catatonia, for example,