Psychosomatic Medicine 16:502-504 (1954)
© 1954 American Psychosomatic Society

Note on the Gastric Peristaltic Rate Observed Radiologically in a Group of Mental Patients

¹ Department of Anatomy, University College London, England

A previous investigation of the gastric peristaltic rates of 78 persons, after a barium meal, showed that one person of this sample had a very much more variable rate of peristalsis on the day of observation than any of the others. It was subsequently found that this woman suffered from recurrent mental illness.

The mean peristaltic rates and standard deviations of these rates were obtained for 20 mental patients during a single x-ray examination of each person after a barium meal.

No significant difference was found between the variability of the peristaltic rates (as measured by the standard deviations) of this group of persons and the previous group of 78 normal subjects.

The difference between the mean rates of peristalsis of the persons in the two groups is barely significant at the 5.0 per cent level.

It is concluded that the rate of gastric peristalsis of the mental patients examined is not different from that of the previous sample of normal people examined, and that the extreme variability of the single case observed in this latter group remains unexplained.