The Chronicity of Schizophrenia in Indigenous Tropical Peoples

Abstract

Although the belief that primitive man might be free from schizophrenia has joined the rest of the golden age myths, there is still a serious question respecting the severity or chronicity of the disease in many tropical peoples. In such peoples typical cases of schizophrenia are proportionately uncommon, and in their place one often meets an acute short-lasting psychosis, which may be indistinguishable from classical schizophrenia in its initial stages but which runs a much shorter course and carries a better prognosis.