Abstract
1. Reserpine seems to be effective in all three grades of distress with slightly better results in the 1st and 2nd grade, and there it will be most useful. Reserpine suppresses the affective component of the various psychopathological symptoms, thus often making it possible for the symptoms to take a favorable course.
2. Methyl-phenidyl acetate was useful in counterbalancing depressive factor induced in some patients by reserpine.
3. 3-phenyl-3 (βdiethylaminoethyl)-2-6-dioxopiperidine hydrochloride is very useful in combatting the complication of the extrapyramidal syndrome induced by high dosage of reserpine.
4. It is the author's experience that a large number of patients can receive proper dosages of reserpine, provided the side effects are counterbalanced symptomatically, and this would be preferable to abandoning therapy or reducing the dosage below the beneficial levels. The toxicity of reserpine is reversible.
5. The percentage of patients who showed a meaningful improvement in psychological testing (Wechsler Bellevue and Bender Gestalt) are interesting. 22% of those on reserpine showed consistent meaningful improvement in combined scores and 22% of those on placebo showed meaningful improvement in combined scores. Among individuals, however there was generally a greater degree of improvement in the reserpine patients than in the placebo patients.
6. The post E.E.G. records do not show significant improvement except in a few records on the reserpine group.
7. Our study also confirms the findings in other papers that in some patients the good results last only as long as the drug is administered. The period of observation covered by this report is a brief one. Therefore there are still a number of questions incompletely answered.