Dementia Praecox. A Psychological Study
- Author:
Harriet Babcock.
-Lancaster, Fa.: Science Press Printing Co., 1933. 167 pp. In an exceedingly interesting monograph, the author relates the application of her mental testing procedure, developed in her work with paretics, to 206 patients diagnosed as dementia prsecox. The study seeks to show. ‘A. That recent experimental technique gives evidence that the phenomena of dementia prsecox are similar to those observed in other diseases where organic deterioration rather than mental habituation is the accepted basis of abnormality. Since deterioration will explain all the phenomena of dementia prsecox it is valid prima facie to accept the general explanation which accords with other types of abnormality and it becomes unwarranted to hypothecate other causes based on observations of normal persons. B. That certain aspects of dementia prsecox can only be explained with reference to a theory of mental impairment due to physiological causes.”
As a control group 216 non-psychotic persons were used, some of whom, however, the author later indicates as being considered normal only because not yet hospitalized. Through the employment of her ‘1 index of efficiency,’’ i.e., the ratio between the level of past learning, as evidenced by vocabulary and of present “ability to perceive and fixate new data” as indicated by scores on her battery of tests, Dr Babcock finds that there is a reliable difference in mental efficiency between the normal group and 11 all prsecox patients, even those whose defect is not apparent.”
By controlling the degree of mental impairment, characteristic differences in scores on the several tests were found among the four types of dementia prsecox in the early stages; with the group as a whole “the deviation below the norm was found to be directly related to the degree of hopelessness of the condition and to the extent of the peculiarities appearing in the behavior.” The author is convinced that in the lessened mental efficiency is to be found the cause for all the unusual behavior of the prsecox patient. Thus the generally ascribed characteristics of inattention, apathy, seclusion, hallucinations and delusions, defective judgment, interest and will are explained as directly consequent upon the patient’s isolation due to his inability to correctly perceive and adequately understand his environment. For this reason “Descriptive studies of the overt behavior of such patients are probably as useful and enlightening in understanding dementia prsecox as would an attempt to understand Typhoid Fever by recording and interpreting the talk of delirious patients followed by an attempt to treat them by exhortation.” The findings of Dr Babcock with reference to defective mental efficiency and to the correlation between this defect and the general level of prsecox behavior constitute a highly significant contribution to our knowledge of the disorder. Whether all symptoms of the prsecox patient can be reasonably interpreted on this basis must await careful and minute comparison between each such symptom and the possible effect of such mental defect. Furthermore, it is highly improbable that the arguments of the author relative to an organic etiology will prove convincing to many workers. Irrespective of this, however, her findings with reference to those patients who are definitely psychotic appear sufficiently definite to indicate the inadequacy of many existing theories and to demand that future theoretical attempts to explain the schizophrenic reaction take into serious consideration these facts concerning progressive mental inefficiency.
The results of the investigation are presented in detail, together with a running interpretation of the data on the learning ability of the prsecox group, on the course of deterioration and on the characteristics of the four types. There is, finally, an appendix of statistical results and of case histories of patients who could not give reliable vocabularies but could make some response on all tests and of those patients so deteriorated that on neither point could adequate information be secured. Thomas J. Snee ?
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