Intersting article from 1918

[thereishope]

FINDS INSANITY DUE TO INFECTED TEETH

 

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/...FB6678383609EDE

 

I wasn't able to copy and paste because the computer couldn't understand the type to do so.

[P_Mom]

This actually makes my blood boil. They have known about this for how long? Yet many docs think we are crazy!!???

[amy s]

Vickie this is an awesome article. How on earth did you find this? I am so amazed that by now every single person with a mental disturbance is not tested for some sort of bacterial or viral cause. Thanks for sharing this.

[Iowadawn]

You took the words out of my mouth!!! I got madder & madder the more I read!! 100 years and doctors act like we're nuts!! Tell me there hasn't been some cover up going on. THIS STINKS!!

 

Dawn

[peglem]

I wonder if there were any follow up studies.

Nice find Vickie! I've always had a lot of problems with my teeth- they're a mess!

[thereishope]

Actually there was another article printed in 1896 in Scientific American Mind entitled "Is Insanity Due to a Microbe". 2 docs describe how they injected cerebrospinal fluid of mentally ill patients into rabbits, which later got sick. The docs concluded that certain forms of insanity could be caused by infectious agents.

 

I can't find full text for that one.

Edited May 9, 2010 by Vickie

[kimballot]

Vickie - you are an amazing wealth of information! What a find!

[saidie10]

This is a very interesting article! Thanks for sharing. Unbelievable to me that there are still physicians who don't buy into the fact that infection can cause neurological issues!

[bronxmom2]

In fact they have known this since the middle age.

But it seems with the growth of psychology, they separated the mind from the body, overly specialized, and FORGOT.

[peglem]

This on Wikipedia @ Dr. Cotton gives an inkling why his ideas didn't last. Remember, this was before pennicillan.

[peglem]

And here's a rather long, but I thought interesting book except:

 

http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=780

[Kay]

Finding this very interesting as my dad had gum disease, probably RF when he was young (died at 52 heart attack) and I started my anxiety issues over night when I had been having on and off flares of infection in a tooth for about a year (tooth eventually had a root canal) I also had stage 4 gum disease at the time of my pregnancy (dentist would not dx gum disease at the time so I didn't know it) didn't have it looked into until after my daughter was born and now she is a Pandas!!!!

[thereishope]

One article blamed Freud for haulting the idea that infections can cause mental illness.

 

Whomever brought up the abx point...I was thinking the same thing. They would have had even more success in their study if pen was developed then. That's probably why some died (lack of abx).

[Megs_Mom]

Great article, thank you. It's so odd to realize that the fight we are having now is over 100 years old. A little discouraging, but thank God we have abx now, even if we have to fight to get it.

[Worried_Dad]

Wow - fascinating! This is at about the same time (1918) that the encephalitis lethargica epidemic erupted around the globe, especially in NY area. I'm reading the book Asleep about this "forgotten" epidemic - only partway through it. But it's amazing: this was at a time when neurology and psychiatry were still combined into one discipline ("neuropsychiatry"). The experts back then did not doubt for a moment that this outbreak of severe, PANDAS-like illness was a direct result of an infection that caused inflammation and damage to the basal ganglia, that the physical and mental symptoms were inextricably intertwined.

 

My, how far we've come with all this specialization in the past century... sigh.