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EXPERIMENTALLY PRODUCED PSYCHOSES

Paul H. Hoch

American Journal of Psychiatry February 1, 1951 DOI: 10.1176/ajp.107.8.607 (opens in new tab)

Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Observational study Peer reviewed
Population Schizophrenic patients and normal voluntary controls
Intervention Intravenous injection of synthetic mescaline
Topics Mescaline
Keywords Psychosurgery Schizophrenia object-oriented programming Psychosis Lobotomy Psychotherapist Hallucinogen
Citations 41
Key findings Mescaline can reactivate psychosis in patients who improved after psychosurgery, but the response is quantitatively less conspicuous than before surgery.

Abstract

Intravenous injection of synthetic mescaline was used in a group of schizophrenic patients and on "normal" voluntary controls. The changes produced by mescaline in "normals" were described. In addition, the observations were made that mescaline is able to underscore in patients suffering from schizophrenia their schizophrenic symptoms or able to precipitate schizophrenic psychoses in persons suffering from latent schizophrenia. Different "therapeutic measures" were discussed as applied to the mescaline-produced abnormal mental states. Mescaline was also given to a number of patients before and after psychosurgery. It was found that with mescaline it was possible to reactivate the psychosis in patients who improved after psychosurgery but that their response to the drug was quantitatively less conspicuous than before.

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