Chlorpromazine schizophrenic diseases

The introduction of the phenothiazinc neuroleptic drug chlorpromazine in the treatment of schizophrenia is regarded by many as the most important event in 20th century psychiatry (Table 5.1 Swazey, 1974). Prior to chlorpromazine most schizophrenics could look forward to a lifetime in a state mental hospital. Though chlorpromazine and its successor neuroleptic drugs do not cure the disease, they favorably influence the fundamental symptoms so much that most patients can function reasonably well. Together with the advent of the community mental health move-... 

Although they were mostly enthusiastic about the potential therapeutic benefits of chlorpromazine, these early pioneers were at pains to point out that they did not believe that the drug acted on the disease process or had any specific effect on psychotic or schizophrenic symptoms. The authors of an early British study of chlorpromazine s effects in chronically psychotic long-term institutionalised patients concluded that in no case was the content of the psychosis changed. The schizophrenic and paraphrenic patients continued to be subject to delusions... 

---