AGEING AND DETOXICATION
Studies in Hippuric Acid Synthesis During Psychoses of the Involutional and Old Age Group
KARL STERN M. D.1,
EWART G. HINDS M. D.1, , and
BRIGITTE A. ASKONAS B. SC.1
1 The Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, the Allan Memorial Institute of Psychiatry, and the Verdun Protestant Hospital.
The detoxifying capacity of the organism during psychoses of the involutional and old age period was investigated by Quick's intravenous hippuric acid test. Seventy-one patients were studied, 48 of whom were 45 years and older; 30 of these were 6o years and older.
Evidence of faulty detoxication was present in more than three times the number of patients of 6o years and older, than had been found by previous investigators in mentally normal people of the same age group. Moreover, a small group (5) of cases of senile dementia had conspicuously low values, even when compared with patients of the same age suffering from affective disorders or from hypertensive encephalopathy.
A comparison of these cases among themselves shows that gross differences in diet and nutrition, differences in body weight, in blood pressure and in urinary excretion can be neglected as sources of error.
The significance of these findings is discussed.
