‘The improvement often brought about in patients with chronic mental disorders by various acute febrile processeswas known to Hippocrates, and has frequently been noted since his day. Many essays in the infection therapy of general paralysis of the insane have been made during the last forty years or so, and a general account of the whole subject is given by Dr. Gerstmann in a book [note: ‘Die Malariabehandlung der Progressiven Paralyse. Von Privatdozent Dr. Josef Gerstmann. Mit einem Vorwort von Professor Dr. Julius Wagner-Jauregg. Vienna: J. Springer. 1925. (Roy. 8vo, pp. vi + 229; 16 figures. G.M. 12.)’] dealing with treatment by infection with malaria’. (481)

‘Many interesting observations made in the course of the extensive treatment of general paralysis by malaria as practised at Vienna, where over a thousand cases have been dealt with, are recorded by the author, and the already extensive literature of the subject is reviewed and quoted. Discussing the form of treatment that employs African recurrent fever (caused by Spirochaeta dutttoni) in place of malaria, he states that the results in general paralytic and other mental patients are less good, and that the spirochaetal infection is less under control than is the malarial. He lays stress also on the fact that after repeated passages from one human being to another, the malarial parasite changes in such a way that it can no longer be transmitted by the mosquito Anopheles maculipennis to human beings. He gives no general statistics as to the percentages of cures and remissions and so forth resulting from the malarial treatment of general paralysis of the insane, but shows good reason for the view that here at last we have a treatment well worth trying in that hitherto incurable disorder.’ (481)