TREATMENT OF INVOLUTIONAL MELANCHOLIA BY ESTROGEN

The pathologic physiology of the menopause has been placed on a valid basis by the work of endocrinologists in the past ten years. Fluhmann¹ noted that following the menopause the anterior hypophysis hypertrophies and there is an increase in the amount of gonadotropic hormone of the anterior hypophysis in the blood serum of many of these women. The ovarian follicular hormone estrogen, on the other hand, decreases.² Meyer, Leonard, Hisaw and Martin³ showed that the administration of estrogen diminished the gonad stimulating potency of the anterior hypophyses of castrate male and female rats.

In the treatment of involutional melancholia, estrogen has heretofore been used by different investigators with varying success. Recently⁴ the use of prolonged and adequate doses of estrogen raised the percentage of clinical cures. A similar method in the case reported here resulted in cure, although during the first month of treatment the case appeared refractory to treatment.