THE OXYGEN CONTENT OF CEREBRAL BLOOD IN PATIENTS WITH ACUTE SYMPTOMATIC PSYCHOSES AND ACUTE DESTRUCTIVE BRAIN LESIONS
HAROLD E. HIMWICH M. D.1, and
JOSEPH F. FAZEKAS 1
1 The Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Albany Medical College, Union University, Albany, New York.
The cerebral arterio-venous oxygen differences were determined on three patients with mental symptoms which appeared in the course of pernicious anemia, cardiac decompensation and luetic encephalopathy. In the two patients with an extracerebral origin of the mental disturbances the oxygen content of the venous blood was subnormal while in the patient with an intracerebral process the venous oxygen content was above the normal value.
These observations suggest that a determination of the oxygen content of the venous cerebral blood may indicate whether the mental symptoms are produced by inadequate oxygen supply or result from changes in the brain, provided that alterations in the rate of blood flow do not obscure these indications.
