The Psychic Effects of Toxic and Toxoid Substances

Ten years ago the problem of the effects of intoxicating drugs had received but scanty attention from psycho-analytical writers and there was considerable confusion of ideas upon the subject. A certain number of isolated observations had been recorded, some of which were of great value4, the majority of analysts, on the other hand, had only a meagre practical experience of the matter. It was not until eight years ago that Radó made the first attempt at a systematic treatment of it2 and added contributions of his own in the form of a paper entitled 'The Problem of Melancholia'3 and a series of lectures on 'Intoxication and Depression'4, finally penetrating further into the problem in his paper, 'Psychoanalyse der Pharmakothymie'.5 After the first of these works Radó's interest was focussed exclusively on the subject of addictions; Weiss6 and Kielholz, 7 on the other hand, were studying the relations between toxic drugs and psychosis. Wulff8 brought into prominence a special symptom-complex in