To the etiology of catatonia

Kahlbaum, the founder of the doctrine of catatonia, presents the etiology of this mental disorder as follows: hereditary predisposition does not have any significant significance as a cause of catatonia, just as it is not essential for the progressive paralysis of the insane; Kahlbaum noted an unfavorable psychopathological heredity in only 4 of the 50 cases of catatonia known to him. The value of gender and age is inversely related to the value of these factors for the incidence of progressive paralysis, namely: women fall ill with catatonia no less than men; further, each age, starting from the period of manhood and even from the last years of childhood, up to the senile years, is subject to the disease almost evenly, with a predominance of the disease in the first half of the middle years.