Psychiatric Aspects of Epidemic Encephalitis

Since the earliest descriptions of epidemic encephalitis, most observers have recognized that some degree of psychic disturbance formed an essential feature of the clinical picture. Very few studies have, however, dealt particularly with the psychiatric aspects of this disease. In fact, a review of the extensive literature which has appeared during the past few years shows, in contrast to the intensive study and finer differentiation of the various neurologic syndromes, that the psychotic manifestations of encephalitis have on the whole received relatively little attention. Those writers who have reported psychiatric observations have been concerned mainly with the initial or early mental symptoms, and remarkably little has so far been recorded as to the course and outcome of the mental disturbance; and the important questions of permanent mental damage and the more chronic psychotic manifestations have been discussed hardly at all. It is, of course, evident that a satisfactory solution of