THREE FACTS in connection with schizophrenia prompted this study: the prevalence and gravity of this mental ailment, the absence of recent ophthalmoscopic reports and the lack of micropathologic descriptions of the optic disk in cases of schizophrenia. New York state has twenty state hospitals for the mentally ill, with an average total population of 85,000 patients, of whom approximately 25 per cent are schizophrenic. Their treatment and care constitute an important medical, social and economic problem.
Although, in the past, there has been important research to determine the possible existence of pathologic changes in the nervous system and other organs in schizophrenia, little has been reported concerning the ophthalmologic findings. In general, studies of the fundus have not been considered in cases of mental disorders. Modern textbooks and other medical literature on psychiatry do not mention the ophthalmoscopic picture in schizophrenic patients.
In 1912, Tyson and Clark1 included examinations