Schizophrenia as a Specific Biologic Disease
ROBERT G. HEATH M.D., D.M.SC.1, and
IRIS M. KRUPP PH.D.2
1 Professor and chairman, department of psychiatry and neurology, Tulane University School of Medicine, 1430 Tulane Avenue, New Orleans, La. 70112
2 Associate professor in immunology, department of psychiatry and neurology, Tulane University School of Medicine, 1430 Tulane Avenue, New Orleans, La. 70112
Previous work from the Tulane laboratories showed that a psychosis-inducing gamma globulin fraction in sera of schizophrenic patients, designated taraxein, was demonstrable by passive transfer in volunteer nonpsychotic recipients and in rhesus monkeys. In this study the authors found that the presence of taraxein in the sera of schizophrenic patients is specifically related to acute psychotic episodes and that serum fractions of patients with psychotic symptoms from diseases other than schizophrenia produced negative results. They conclude that taraxein is specifically related to schizophrenia.
