In recent years increasing attention has been paid to the bodily changes that occur in mental disease.1 Our particular interest in this interrelationship has been directed toward an evaluation of the alterations in muscle tonus in catatonic schizophrenia associated with catalepsy. Since a practical quantitative method of studying the tonus of striated muscle was not available, we planned to study the response of smooth muscle. One of us (O. R. L.) and his associates devised a graphic recording apparatus for determining vesical activity. The bladder was accordingly utilized in this investigation. A series of observations on disturbances of micturition accompanying various organic abnormalities of the nervous system has been described in previous papers.2 More or less characteristic physiologic changes were observed to be associated with damage to particular cell groups and fiber tracts.
The method employed in the study has previously been standardized and has served as an