PROGNOSIS AND TREATMENT

Abstract

FEW data are available relating to the subject though scattered studies have been made without any definite conclusions, and some of these are here briefly reviewed. The writers studied the proportion of cancer found among 2,627 autopsies. The cancer cases numbered 114, or 4-3 per cent. Practically all types of mental disorder were represented. The majority of the cases had been inmates for a considerable period of time. The difficulty of obtaining a satisfactory norm for the expected cancer incidence is great, and the danger of attempting to draw conclusions based on the use of proportionate mortality rates was duly appreciated. If the accuracy of available information is assumed, cancer is abnormally infrequent in the insane. This might be explained by environment, by heredity, or most likely by the relatively short life expectancy of the psychotic patient. We must at least consider the hypothesis that the soil best suited for the development of cancer differs from that in which insanity develops. C. S. R.