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The experimental production of catatonia in animals by the use of bulbocapnine was first described by the author and Baruk in 1930. The present book represents an extension and an expansion of that significant research. A variety of substances are now known to produce catatonic signs. The first part of this book consists of detailed and extensive protocols of numerous experimental studies. Catatonia was induced by means of drugs, asphyxiation, centrifugation, surgical occlusion of the carotid arteries, audiogenic stimulation and other methods.
The implications for human pathology, with particular reference to catatonic schizophrenia, are presented in the second part of the book.
Dr. de Jong concludes that experimental catatonia is analogous to epileptiform seizures in that both conditions represent nonlocalized diffuse reactions of the central nervous system. He offers the suggestion that cellular asphyxiation may be responsible for the onset of catatonic signs.
He believes that schizophrenia is primarily an