An analysis of 140 cases from the Massachusetts state hospitals in 1919 shows the following:—

NumberPercentage
Delirium with infectious diseases4834.28
Post-infectious psychoses2517.85
Exhaustion delirium2618.57
Delirium of unknown origin64.28
Cardio-renal diseases1611.42
Diseases of the ductless glands1.71
Other conditions1812.85

Three hundred and sixteen cases from hospitals in nineteen other states were reported as follows:—

NumberPercentage
Delirium with infectious diseases6921.83
Post-infectious psychoses309.49
Exhaustion delirium7523.73
Delirium of unknown origin3310.44
Cardio-renal diseases4514.24
Diseases of the ductless glands154.74
Other conditions4915.50

We have, thus, a total of 936 cases distributed as follows:—Delirium with infectious diseases, 19.76 per cent; post-infectious psychoses, 16.77; exhaustion delirium, 20.83; delirium of unknown origin, 8.01; cardio-renal diseases, 13.88; diseases of the ductless glands, 3.84; and other conditions, 16.88 per cent. Four and one hundredth per cent of the first admissions in Massachusetts, 3.45 per cent of the New York admissions, and 2.07 per cent of admissions to twenty-one other institutions during the same period of time were cases of psychoses due to other somatic diseases. They constituted 2.81 per cent of 34,935 admissions to all of the institutions above noted.


CHAPTER XI
THE MANIC-DEPRESSIVE PSYCHOSES

The manic-depressive psychoses as first described by Kraepelin are of comparatively recent origin. The history of the clinical entities included in this new grouping, however, may be easily traced back to the earliest days of psychiatry. Although these terms were not used perhaps as they came to be later, mania and melancholia were, as has already been shown, known in the Hippocratic era, over four hundred years before the time of Christ. They were referred to again in the works of Aretaeus in the first century A. D. and were recognized by Celsus, Caelius Aurelianus and Galen. Daniel Sennert[267] of Wittenberg (1572-1637) defined melancholia as a "delirium or deprival of imagination and reason, without fever, with fear and sadness, arising from dark and melancholy animal spirits, and occasioning corresponding phantoms." Mania he described as a "delirium or deprival of imagination and reason without fear, but, on the contrary, with audacity, temerity, anger, and ferocity, without fever, arising from a fervent and fiery disposition."