The Urinary Lead-Acetate-Extractable Substances in Schizophrenia

Introduction  Many authors have discussed the importance of indolic compounds and their derivatives in the urine of patients with mental disease^1,2; earlier work from these laboratories suggested that one such substance might be related to adrenolutin, an indole derived from epinephrine.¹ In 1935 Linnell and Raper³ showed that certain chromogenic derivatives of tyrosin in the urine could be extracted by precipitation with lead acetate. Studies made here showed that when adrenolutin was added to urine under appropriate conditions and the urine was then extracted at an acid pH, a substance not previously present appeared in the extract; it was evident that the method would reveal the presence of adrenolutinlike compounds if any were present in the urine of patients. Studies were therefore made by means of the method on urines from normal subjects, psychotic and other mental patients, and very sick patients from the