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The stated objectives of this paper are to answer three questions: 1. Is thyroid function normal in patients with mental disease? The function was measured by four tests reflecting different aspects of thyroid physiology: basal metabolic rate, serum protein-bound iodine, radioactive iodine and plasma cholesterol. 2. How does this compare with test results in patients with known thyroid disease? 3. Is there any difference in test results in patients with different types of mental illness?
The patients studied were classified as schizophrenic, manic depressive, mixed psychoneurosis, and controls. Recognition of the scientific difficulties inherent in the interpretations of the findings permits the authors the following careful statements in answer to their three questions: 1. The pattern of the four tests is significantly different in the mental illnesses despite the fact that the test results fall within the normal range. 2. Thyroid function in the psychoses is significantly different from that found in thyroid disease. 3. Thyroid function is different in schizophrenia, manic depressive psychosis, psychoneurotic patients, and normals. The pattern of the test results are different, with many seeming inconsistencies. No attempt is made in this paper to make spurious causal relationships—it is an attempt to obtain some reflection of thyroid function in various mental states.