Since 1936 we have been employing amphetamine (benzedrine) sulfate in the treatment of psychotic patients.1 Shortly after the inception of our investigations we discovered that a more beneficial effect could be obtained, particularly in treatment of schizophrenia, when sodium amytal and amphetamine sulfate were administered in combination than when either of these drugs was used alone.
The present communication is concerned with the results obtained with this combined therapy during the past three years in a series of 80 patients with dementia praecox. A comparison is made with the responses of four control groups of patients: (1) 500 patients with schizophrenia treated by other routine procedures, (2) 50 patients with dementia praecox treated with sodium amytal alone, (3) 30 patients with dementia praecox treated with amphetamine sulfate alone and (4) 25 patients with manic-depressive psychosis treated by the combined amphetamine-amytal method.
PROCEDURE
In applying the combined therapy, we selected