citizenry several hundred million dollars a year. Hundreds of thousands of Americans would avoid the living death of chronic mental illness. That is why the National Mental Health Committee advocates an aggressive, adequate program of training for early treatment through community facilities, and research for new cures, in the battle against mental illness. DAILY PATIENT LOAD ALL US. HOSPITALS-1951 Dr. WORTIS. Mr. Chairman, I would like very much to have Dr. Kety address the committee. STATEMENT OF DR. SEYMOUR S. KETY, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR IN CHARGE OF RESEARCH, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH Dr. KETY. Mr. Chairman, these eminent psychiatrists have spoken of the good results that can be achieved in the field of the mentally ill. Those of us in the field of research are concerned with those problems remaining in the large areas where the results are not promising, where the psychiatrist does not have the tools or information to cope with the problem. We are working in an area which is largely unknown. We are working in a field where we do not know the fundamental causes. And in the field of mental illness the causes may arise in a very broad spectrum, from the anatomy of the brain to the psychological experiences of the child and throughout his life. Therefore, research in mental illness has to cover this wide spectrum. Although my primary interests are in basic research, I think we should make the point that basic research in medicine flourishes in an atmosphere of clinical medicine. The basic scientist, by constant experience and constant contact with mentally ill patients and with people treating the mentally ill, is constantly stimulated to devote his research energies to these important problems. I might mention one or two interesting research developments over the past decade or so, to give you the feeling that this is not an entirely hopeless field, and although the path may reach for many years toward ultimate solution, we are achieving results along the way. Recently there have been 1 or 2 drugs developed. One, lysergic acid, if administered in infinitesimal doses that could hardly be seen, produces a condition similar to schizophrenia. That does not mean that schizophrenia results from something you eat in your food, but the important lead is that here is a chemical substance producing something like schizophrenia. If we could find out where it works in the brain, we might have some important clues as to the nature of schizophrenia. Another drug is sodium pentothal, which will bring a schizophrenic into an area where he can be spoken to intelligently. Unfortunately, this persists for only a short time, but it has altered the schizophrenic for that period of time. My group has been doing work on circulation in the human brain, measuring the amount of blood that flows to the living, thinking brain, and the amount of oxygen and glucose which it utilizes. Schizophrenia is a mysterious disease. For many years it was believed that the schizophrenic became so because his brain did not receive a sufficient amount of blood. Studies have shown that the schizophrenics have a normal blood supply and a normal oxygen supply in the brain, and have suggested that perhaps schizophrenia is not so simple a disease of the brain; it may be related to the past experience of the individual and his impact with society. The same technique has been used to study people with senile psychosis. In people with senile psychosis there is a marked diminution in blood that flows to the brain and a marked diminution in oxygen |