Biochemical Aspects of Mental Subnormality

Abstract

The study of biochemical abnormalities as a cause of human disease is a very important subject of theoretical as well as of practical interest, especially as it so particularly involves the problem of mental subnormality, this awful dump of human misery which has been so largely neglected in the past by the academic research worker. I shall here try to generalize and bring out what is being learnt about the mechanisms by which some biochemical abnormalities damage the brain. I shall try to describe a few general principles concerning these mechanisms, and in particular how we may hope to be able to modify them when discovered, and to show how far we have actually got with treatment, because, of course, it is painfully obvious that some of our work is purely observational, with no hope at the moment of useful treatment. Fortunately, however, there are some happy exceptions.

An edited transcript of the verbatim report of Professor Dent’s contribution to the Symposium.