ACCELERATION of blood-clotting time in patients with schizophrenic, manic-depressive, or involutional psychosis has been recognized for many years; not all patients with these disorders exhibit this phenomena.1 Changes in clotting in relation to shock treatment have not been described; it was considered desirable, therefore, to study the effects of such treatments on the clotting of blood.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
Clotting time was studied by the method of Lee and White2 in 21 patients before, and again several days after, a course of insulin or electroshock treatment. The recalcified clotting time2 was studied similarly in 40 other patients; observations on the recalcified clotting time also were made in 20 of these patients immediately before, 10 minutes after, and 4 hours after, an electroshock treatment. The diagnoses included schizophrenia and manic-depressive and involutional psychoses. Forty-two of the 61 patients studied were women; the ages of the patients ranged from