The study was aimed to assess the prevalence of alcoholism in Madras City. A locality in North Madras was chosen and the houses were selected at random. The family members in these houses were assessed using the Michigan Alcoholism Screening test. 222 persons were thus studied. 16.67 of the males were found to be suffering from alcoholism.

A study is conducted for assessment of personality characteristic using EPI & 16 PF on wives of 30 primary alcoholics who satisfied Feighner's Criteria and were compared with the wives of 30 normal controls matched on imrital an socio-demographic variables. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups on EPI and scores were within normal limits. Both the groups had a similar profile scores on 16 PF being submissive, timid, trustful, conventional, conservative, dependent and poised. These findings were not in favour of the concept of "Pathological wives" causing alcoholism in their husbands as advocated by some western studies. Personality characteristics of our sample in general were significantly different from normative data for western women, where the latter were more dominant, a leventurous and self-sufficient. Implications of these findings are discussed in the light of our socio-cultural context.

The present study was aimed to find out the alteration of NE and 5HT systems in depression, if so in the same direction or not and to find out the clinical response to combined therapy of Imipramine and Amitriptyline, both tricyclic antidepressants. The study group consisted of 39 depressives as defined by I. C. D. 9 and 17 normal controls. Hamilton Depression Rating Scale was used to assess the severity of depression initially and after clinical improvement with drugs. Urinary MHPG and CSF 5HIAA were estimated final] depressives as per the standard procedure. It was found that both urinary MHPG and CSF 5HIAA were lowered in depressives but when individual patients were analysed both were not altered in the same direction in a given individual. All the depressives showed equal therapautic response to combined administration of Imipramine and Amitripiyline.

Sociodemographic, clinical and outcome characteristics of 29 cases who had the diagnosis of schizoaffective psychosis were studied. On the basis of longitudinal course of the illness, 2 distinct subgroup of patients could be delineated. Patients with episodic illness were more akin to affective disorders while those with continuous course of illness were conceptually closer to schizophrenia. Concordance of the ICD-9 diagnosis of these patients with other well known diagnostic systems tike Research Diagnostic Criteria, DSM-III-R and proposed ICD-10 was studied. Advantages and limitations of these diagnostic systems with regard to the diagnosis of schizoaffective psychosis are discussed.

A case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder with no contributory or past history who developed delusional mania while on clomipramine is presented. The manic symptoms resolved after discontinuation of drug. The link between serotonin and mania is speculated upon. The need to look for manic symptoms in patients on clomipramine is stressed.