Biochemical screening for thyroid dysfunction in 98 unselected female psychiatric admissions led to the diagnosis of hypothyroidism in three cases which would otherwise have passed unrecognized. It is suggested that female psychiatric patients over the age of 40 should routinely be screened for thyroid disorder.

The seasonal variation of admissions to hospital with a diagnosis of mania (296.1) in England and Wales was examined. The results indicated that for females there was a significant seasonal trend, the peak being in August–September, while for males there was no significant seasonal pattern. The possible reasons for these findings are discussed.

Children whose mothers received prenatal progesterone have been shown to be advanced in development at one year and to have greater academic achievement at 9–10 years. This study compares the educational attainments at 17–20 years of 34 progesterone children with 37 normal and 12 toxaemic controls. More progesterone children continued schooling after 16 years compared with controls; a higher proportion left school with ‘O’ level and ‘A’ level passes, the average number of passes per child was greater at both levels and more obtained a university place. The best academic results were in those whose mothers had received over 5 grams of prenatal progesterone, and for whom administration commenced before the sixteenth week and treatment lasted longer than eight weeks.

Prospective developmental data on 33 children of consensus diagnosed schizophrenic parents were compared to control samples of children of other psychiatric patients and children of normal parents. Contrary to several reports, the children of schizophrenics, observed from birth to age seven, were remarkably normal on a host of pregnancy and delivery variables, neurological examinations, physical growth measures, and psychological tests. However, a combination of three indicators characterized five of the 116 children, and all five were offspring of schizophrenics (17 per cent of the high risk sample), thus matching the expected lifetime risk for schizophrenia previously observed in such samples. Case histories show that all five children have enduring patterns of maladjustment and exhibit behaviours often reported in the premorbid histories of schizophrenics. Most have family histories heavily loaded with schizophrenia. In terms of a diathesis-stress model, these five children appear especially vulnerable to future schizophrenia in the absence of rational methods of prevention.

The topic of psychiatric classification has generated more interest and controversy in the last decade than for a long time. Several trends have coalesced to foster its resurgence as a subject of debate. First, a sociological perspective on psychopathology has gained widespread attention (Becker, 1963; Matza, 1969; Scheff, 1966). The exponents of this perspective have focused on the effects of ‘labelling.’ Their writings have stimulated mental health professionals to examine the consequences of applying classificatory systems in psychiatry. Second, the rapid development of behaviour modification has been a source of numerous polemical attacks on the ‘medical model’ and on the classification system derived from the notion that psychological disturbances constitute a finite number of varieties of mental illness (e.g., Ullmann and Krasner, 1975). Third, criticisms have been voiced of the unsatisfactory reliability of the standard/accepted national and international psychiatric classification schemes (e.g., Scharfetter, 1971; Spitzer and Wilson, 1974). Such criticisms have sparked the development of new classificatory systems notable for the specificity and explicitness of rules of diagnostic assignment (Feighner et al, 1972; Spitzer, Endicott, and Robins, 1974).

A fatal pancytopenia occurred in a patient with an history of depression with hypomanic rebounds, admitted for a manic episode and treated with levomepromazine, diazepam and lithium carbonate.

The season of birth of the siblings of psychiatric patients was studied to test the hypothesis that an unusual seasonal pattern of maternal conception is the cause of the excess of births in the early months of the year which has been found in national studies of psychotic patients. Information on the month of birth of the siblings was obtained from interviews with psychiatric in-patients born in Britain. The quarterly distribution of births of 670 mentally well siblings of psychotic patients (schizophrenia and manic-depression) was significantly different from that of 1,513 siblings of other psychiatric patients and also from that of all births in England and Wales. The results lend qualified support to the hypothesis, but they were not clear-cut and there was some evidence that the information on birth dates was biased.

The 24-hour oral temperatures of 51 chronic schizophrenic patients, 19 non-schizophrenic chronic psychiatric patients and 14 non-patients have been measured and compared. The chronic schizophrenics have an earlier peak temperature and differ significantly from the other groups. Compared with the non-schizophrenic patients their hourly mean temperatures reach significantly higher levels in the morning. Compared with the non-patients their mean temperatures fall to significantly lower levels in the evening after 5.00 pm.

The effectiveness of a community mental health programme in a developing country (Fiji) is examined. The programme was remarkable in that very little expertise was available in the community for it to be carried through. The results indicate that one category of hospital in-patient will subsequently derive significant benefit, namely the patient diagnosed as having schizophrenia who has been in a mental hospital more than once.

Evidence from this study confirmed observations made by others that benign acute psychotic episodes are not infrequent in this sort of setting.

Two series of patients with epilepsy and with febrile convulsions were analysed on Slater's computational model for evidence on the mode of inheritance. The study demonstrated that in both series a polygenic inheritance may be more likely than an autosomal dominant or recessive inheritance.

The Chair of the University Nervenklinik in Homburg/Saar was held by Klaus Conrad from 1949-58 and by H.-H, Meyer, a former pupil and colleague of Kurt Schneider, from 1962-72. As the catchment area and admission policy of the clinic remained substantially unchanged throughout, comparison of the relative proportions of all admissions allocated to different diagnostic categories in 1949-58 and 1962-72 can be used to elucidate the similarities and differences between Conrad's and Schneider's diagnostic criteria. The results of this comparison indicate that Schneider's concept of schizophrenia was broader than Conrad's, and his concept of manic-depressive depx-ession more restricted. More detailed comparisons are complicated by differences in nomenclature and in the varieties of functional mental illness recognized in the two periods. However, it seems that Conrad's concept of mania was wider only when the atypical schizophrenia-like psychoses diagnosed during the Conrad era were added to the Conrad-oriented cases of mania; when this was not done, the Schneiderian concept of mania was broader.

In my account of the 1926 Annual Meeting of the R.MPA (News and Notes, October, p 3), I mentioned that the Report of the Royal (Macmillan) Commission on Lunacy and Mental Disorder was summarized and commented on in our Journal for October of that year; needless to say this too was written by the polypragmatic J. R. Lord. At this time when mental health legislation is again under review, it may be of interest to recall the policy (in today’s jargon the ‘philosophy’) which the Commission said should be followed, as well as some of their detailed recommendations, and see what the Association, as represented by its President, thought of them, and also to see how far the Commission’s proposals were accepted for embodiment in the Mental Treatment Act passed four years later.

Associative intrusions in the thought of short-term and long-term schizophrenic, non-schizophrenic, and non-psychiatric in-patients were measured using Rattan and Chapman's multiple-choice vocabulary test. This test consists of two subtests, one with associative distractors and the other without distractors, which are matched on discriminating power and thus permit the assessment of differential specific performance deficit uncontaminated by the generalized deficit characteristic of many patient groups.

Results indicated that some susceptibility to associative intrusions characterizes all groups of long-term patients regardless of diagnosis. Short-term patients (with the possible exception of schizophrenic) did not show such heightened susceptibility.

Lengthy illness and/or stay in hospital are apparently implicated in at least this form of thought disorder, which has been often considered to be a uniquely schizophrenic phenomenon.