Showing papers by "Robin M. Murray published in 1977"

Psychiatric illness in male doctors and controls: an analysis of Scottish hospitals in-patient data.

Abstract: An investigation was undertaken into the first admissions to (for the years 1963, 1965, 1968, 1972) and the total discharges from (for the years 1963-72) Scottish mental hospitals and psychiatric units of male doctors and other social class I males. The overall rates for both first admission and for all discharges were more than twice as high among male doctors as among other social class I males. First admission and total discharge rates for drug dependence, alcoholism, neurotic and 'functional' depression and for affective psychosis were all significantly higher among doctors than non-doctors. Doctors were more likely than non-doctors to have been referred by themselves or by medical sources other than general practitioners, and were as willing as non-doctors to enter hospital voluntarily. Creater access to psychiatrists may have contributed to their higher rates in in-patient care, but it is improbable that such factors accounted for all of the excess in rates of drug dependence, alcoholism and depression.

Factors affecting the urinary excretion of endogenously formed dimethyltryptamine in normal human subjects

Abstract: The hallucinogenic substance N',N'-dimethyltryptamine and its precursor N-methyltryptamine were found in 24-h specimens of urine from 19 normal human subjects; the mean excretion rates were 386 ng 24 h(-1) and 856 ng 24 h(-1) respectively. The urinary excretion of both compounds was unrelated to age, sex, urinary volume, or creatinine, nor was any consistent diurnal pattern observed. Rates for the mono and dimethylated compounds were not correlated. Diet and the intestinal flora were excluded as a source of urinary dimethyltryptamine. Administration to 4 subjects of sufficient ammonium chloride to increase the H ion concentration of the urine caused a transient increase in dimethyltryptamine excretion but no consistent increase in the rate for N-methyltryptamine. Acidification of the urine did not appear to be the determining factor in this result since in one subject the same drop in urinary pH was achieved by feeding methionine without any increase in dimethyltryptamine excretion.

Urinary dimethyltryptamine and psychiatric symptomatology and classification

Abstract: The excretion of dimethyltryptamine (DMT) was studied amongst 122 recently admitted psychiatric patients and 20 normal subjects. DMT was detected in the urine of 47% of those diagnosed by their psychiatrists as schizophrenic, 38% of those with other non-affective psychoses, 13% of those with affective psychoses, 19% of those with neurotic and personality disorders and 5% of normal subjects. Ninety-nine patients were interviewed in a semi-standardized fashion, and also categorized according to a variety of operational definitions of the psychoses. The operational definitions failed to reveal any group significantly more correlated with urinary DMT than a hospital diagnosis of schizophrenia, but a discriminant function analysis of symptomatology could be used to define a group of 21 patients of whom 15 (71%) excreted detectable DMT. There was a general relationship between psychotic symptoms and urinary DMT, but specifically schizophrenic symptoms did not appear to be major determinants of DMT excretion.