There is a melanin theory favored by Greiner & Nicolson and also by Altschule & Hegedus. However, PKU patients have almost no melanin and they can be psychotic. This is due to a block in the metabolism of the amino acid phenylalanine.
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This is the chemical structure of the amino acid phenylalanine. This clipart is from Chem4Kids, a clipart site that is very educational.
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There was a theory advanced by Dr. Edmund Jacobson that mental disease was in the peripheral nervous system. He claimed that he could find electrical noise on electromyograms. This was advocated in his book "You Must Relax". He advocated "progressive relaxation". Most likely, however, this was a side effect of the disease. Jacobson tried to treat the symptoms, not the cause.
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Altschule, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a researcher at McLean Hospital, favored a brain extract as a treatment. This extract was made from the pineal gland, which is in the brain. A similar approach was tried by Heath, who considered an extract from the septal area. Neither treatment became popular.
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There is little question that schizophrenia is a disease of the brain. What is controversial is the location of the disease in the brain, and also what to do about it. Lobotomy was a miserable failure that did more harm than good.
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Broca was a French brain surgeon who discovered the location of speech in the brain.
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Broca never got the Nobel Prize because he worked in the 19th Century before the Prize was started. Papez, a brilliant neuroanatomist, never got the Nobel Prize either, but Papez was in the 20th Century. Papez reported "inclusion bodies" and other pathology in schizophrenia. Unfortunately Papez was never able to identify what the inclusion bodies were.
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In the 1950's Heath of New Orleans discovered a toxic factor in the blood of schizophrenics using a monkey assay. He used monkeys because they closely resemble humans, by comparison with other species.
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At the same time that Heath was pursuing schizophrenia from electrical and biochemical standpoints, others, such as the Vogts of Germany, were pursuing it from a microscopic standpoint. Unfortunately Papez died in the 50's. The drawing shows nerve cells in the cerebral cortex.
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Although Heath's work was criticized by Kety, it was confirmed by Wada of Canada, who tested a toxic urine factor. The factor was injected into the brains of cats, and it altered the behavior of the cats.
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