There is a substance in the blood of schizophrenics not found in the blood of normal individuals.
Apparently there was no disagreement on this point Tuesday as medical scientists from Sweden all all sections of the United States met at the Fontainebleau Motor hotel to discuss new approaches to the handling of this elusive blood component.
How to identify and isolate this substance was another question.
As the scientists put their heads | together angl began comparing notes, it was apparent they were hoping for a breakthrough which might make possible a cure for this dread mental ailment. 'STILL IN FUTURE'
But Ivhen they were asked if they thought proper isolation of the blood fraction could lead tp (Production of a drug to cure schizophrenia they became typically cautions,
"That's still in the future," said one scientist. I
The symposium, the first of its kind ever held, was sponsorejd jointly by the state hospital department and Tulane and Louis-
iana State universities.
Since much of the research in this field has been identified wi^th Tulane, Dr. Robert Heath, professor and chairman of the phychja-try department at Tulane Medical! school, started the ball rollingi
Dr. Heath told how he and fais co-workers had injected taraxtin —a protein fraction obtained fiom i the blood of schizophrenk8-4nto I the blood of normal human beijhgs. SYMPTOMS DISAPPEAR
The human beings promptly became psychotic.
The psychiatrist said 3? humans, including about 27 Angola convicts, received these injections. The psychotic symptoms lasted between 40 minutes \ and two hours, he added, Then they disappeared.
Dr; Robbert Pennell, Jam^ic^ Plain, Mass., said someti]?nes| rats with which he has been experimenting,, exhibit psychotic symptoms when injected with blood from normal individuals.
"It's true the rats are less psychotic than those who receive injections of blood fractions from schizophrenics," added the scientist, who is executive director of the blood characterization and preservation laboratory for the Protein Foundation Inc.
Dr. Pennell said in both cases the rats falter in their attempts to climb ropes after receiving injections of the blood plasma.
"But they do not falter as much when the injection is blood from a normal human being," he added. v
Dr. Pennell emphasized the fact that his experiment deals with rats and not with huniani beings. He said; he has been-working in close co-operation with the Worcester (Mass.) Foundation for Experimental Biology.
Dr. Gosta Ehrensvard, head of Lund University Institute of Biochemistry in Lund, Sweden, said Swedish scientists are just getting a good,start on studies, which in general tend to corroborate the Tulane findings. PHOTO: DR. ROBERT G. HEATH; DR. ROBERT B. PENNELL DEALS WITH RATS
