To the Editor:—
Gellhorn's paper entitled "The Action of Hypoglycemia on the Central Nervous System and the Problem of Schizophrenia from the Physiologic Point of View" in The Journal, April 30, is so conspicuously lacking in any reference to the work of Petersen, a member of the same faculty as Gellhorn, that some comment seems in order.Petersen's massive researches have been appearing in volume form since 1934 as "The Patient and the Weather" and the series is not yet completed. He showed (1934, volume III, pp. 295-304, and 1936, volume I, part 2, pp. 194-195) from a careful day by day study of patients, certain biochemical differences that existed between the manic phase of manicdepressive psychosis and the schizophrenic status. He definitely associated the "COD" phase of metabolism (catabolism, oxidation, dilatation) when blood is relatively acid, hypoglycemic and hypertonic, with accentuation of schizophrenic symptomatology. He also associated the opposite