[Against the concept of a uniform schizophrenia].

500 chronic schizophrenics (250 men and 250 women) were examined and divided up into two groups according to whether occurrences of psychosis had been proved in the family ('family' cases) or not ('spordic' cases). Considerable discrepancies were found when the two groups were compared. The examination showed the 'sporadic' schizophrenics to be older; their first admission to hospital lay further in the past, they had been in the meantime less frequently discharged, they stayed longer in hospital, more frequently never left hospital after their first admission and showed more rarely fluctuations of the syndrome between two poles. With a more insidious development of the disorder there thus followed a worse prognosis for the sporadic patients than for the familiy patients. The basic discrepancies were significant, for the most part very significant. Sporadic schizophrenics are found more frequently amongst men, family schizophrenics more frequently amongst women. The vast majority of schizophrenics in the families of our test cases were women.