Observations on Benzedrine

Benzedrine was first introduced into therapeutics by Prinzmetal and Bloomberg (1935) for the treatment of narcolepsy. They found it more efficacious than ephe drine in bringing about symptomatic relief in this con dition, and their claim has.subsequently been confirmed. When they began their work little was known of the effects of the drug on man, though some physiological investigations had already been made on animals (Alles, 1933 ; Prinzmetal, 1933). In the same year Peoples and Guttmann made an independent study of its pharma cological actions at the Maudsley Hospital. Certain hitherto unrecorded psychological effects resulting from the administration of the drug to man were observed. In a preliminary report (Peoples and Guttmann, 1936) on these findings it was suggested that benzedrine might have therapeutic applications other than the treatment of narcolepsy. Numerous people have since experimented with the drug and a few have already indicated their findings, some workers confining their investigations to its use in depression, and others dealing with its wider psycho physiological actions (Guttmann, 1936 ; Myerson, 1936, 1937; Myerson and Ritvo, 1936; Nathanson, 1937; Solomon and Prinzmetal, 1937) ; one paper has specially stressed possible dangers and contraindications (Anderson and Scott, 1936). It is the purpose of this paper to report further per sonal observations of an experimental and therapeutic nature which have been collected since the preliminary communication on this subject (Peoples and Guttmann, 1936). Benzedrine has now been given to over 250 in patients, out-patients, and normal subjects at this hospital ; in a proportion of these only the subjective and objective results of administration have been noted, but in more than a hundred cases systematic experiments were carried out.