The Relationship Between Antigammaglobulin Activity and Depression
SEYMOUR ROSENBLATT M.D.1,
IRWIN ORESKES PH.D.2,
HERBERT MEADOW M.D.3, , and
HARRY SPIERA M.D.2
1 Mount Sinai Hospital, 100th Street and Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10029, department of psychiatry
2 Mount Sinai Hospital, 100th Street and Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10029, departments of medicine and microbiology
3 Mount Sinai Hospital, 100th Street and Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10029, department of psychiatry, Mount Sinai Hospital, 100th Street and Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10029, Japan with the Department of the Navy
Measurements of rheumatoid factor were done on the sera of 86 patients consecutively admitted to an acute psychiatric service. Sixty-three percent of those with endogenous depressions and 35 percent of those with schizophrenia had positive titers. When the schizophrenic patients were subdivided on the basis of affective state, it was found that 65 percent of those with depressive symptoms, and only 21 percent of those without depressive symptoms, had positive titers. The authors conclude that depression would seem to be associated with a nonspecific effect involving immunological mechanisms.
