IN A PREVIOUS paper,1 the results of a study on the iron content of the cerebrospinal fluid of 98 patients committed to a mental hospital were reported. After the patients had been divided into various diagnostic groups, a statistically significant difference between the spinal-fluid iron of the patients with acute schizophrenia and that of the deteriorated schizophrenic patients appeared. It was found, furthermore, that the difference between the iron content of the fluid of nondeteriorated schizophrenic patients and that of the patients with organic disease was highly significant, whereas no significant difference could be found between the organic group and the deteriorated schizophrenic patients.
On the basis of this study and of the data collected from the literature, it was assumed that a low iron content of the spinal fluid is indicative of increased brain metabolism and that high iron values for the spinal fluid may reflect reduced cellular