This study is an attempt to assess the value of certain drugs commonly used in psychiatric practice in decreasing the hyperactivity of patients. It is one of a series investigating tranquillizers and mental disorder in mental deficiency practice (Craft 1958).

Psychologists are frequently asked to say whether, in the case of a particular patient, there is evidence of organic dementia. At first sight this would not appear to be an unreasonable request. A considerable amount is known about the performance of normal people on tests of cognitive function and it might be supposed that people who work with tests of human ability should be able to modify their procedures to the purpose of diagnosing intellectual deterioration when this is not obvious on routine neurological or psychiatric examination. Moreover, it might seem that the frequent presence of independent criteria of brain damage provided by neurological and neurosurgical investigations should facilitate the development of competent diagnostic clinical psychology in the neurological field.

There have been numerous reports in recent years of prolonged apnoea resulting from the use of suxamethonium (succinylcholine, “Scoline”) in general anaesthesia and for electroplexy. For example, Grant (16) described a case of respiratory paralysis lasting 2 to 3 post-operative days following an intravenous dose of 80 mg. of suxamethonium, and Cowan (7) reported a patient who underwent a partial gastrectomy and exhibited complete apnoea for 9 hours duration after only 25 mg. of suxamethonium had been given, and who subsequently died. Hurley and Monro (22) reported apnoea lasting for 10 minutes following 20 mg. of suxamethonium used as a relaxant for electroplexy, and for 20 minutes after decamethonium iodide.

Diphenhydramine hydrochloride has been found to have a sedative effect, and various modifications of it have been prepared in order to enhance its effect. A promising variant is Covatin, which is p-butylthiodiphenylmethyl-2-dimethyl-aminoethyl sulphide hydrochloride; or, structurally:

A double-blind study of chlorpromazine and promazine was conducted to measure their comparative therapeutic effectiveness on a short-term basis at medium dosage levels, such as might be used for out-patient purposes. The patients chosen, however, represented a more therapeutically challenging group of hospitalized acute schizophrenics in whom a dramatic and convincing effect might offer an evaluation of comparative response.

Blood copper had been known to be increased in pregnancy, chronic infections and neoplasms. Since the publication of Ullrich in 1942 (9), who found an increased copper level in the blood of schizophrenics, the hypercupraemia has been recognized as possibly significant and pathognomonic in this disease. Therefore during the following years a few investigators studied this aspect and also tried to prove the implications of this fact.