Dysoria,a new dimension of pathology

Summary The starting point of our research was the recognition that such pronounced brain-toxins as lead, manganese and thallium affect the central nervous system without being present there and that they operate through mediators. Other poisons which permeate easily the brain are also dependent on mediators to produce lasting brain injury. Representatives of this group are ethyl alcohol and tellurium.Amongst the mediators most prominent are the toxic deficiencies of thiamine, of riboflavin, of vitamin E and of the very important Geiger's liver factors. All these deficiencies result in dyskrasia, in the terminology of Rokitansky's humoral pathology. The dyskrasia which interfere with the energy metabolism have morphological correlates while other non interferring ones, as LSD, marihuana, and the opium alkaloids do not. This cognizance instigated a series of investigations of the dyskrasic dysergosis (dys = faulty and ergon = work, i.e. energy) which produce structural changes only when chronic. In contrast chronic hypoxia, hypoxemia and cardiopathic oligemia have no neuropathology because of the brain's adaptational mechanisms against chronic circulatory disorders.Another basic difference is that while the brunt of the damage in hypoxic hypoxemic and cardiopathic dysergosis is borne by the neuron, the prime target of the dyskrasic dysergosis is the blood-tissue barriers, the dysfunction of which results in dysoria (Schürmann and McMahon, 1933). The dysory plays a decisive role in such a vast number of chronic degenerative diseases of the brain and of the extracerebral organs, that it amounts to a new dimension of pathology.This investigation was supported by a Research Grant NB-02275 from the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.