Pigmentation and the chemcial basis of schizophrenia

Using a Lovibond flexible fibro-optic tintometer, no differences of skin pigmentation were found between chronic male schizophrenic patients untreated with phenothiazines, and non-schizophrenics. No differences were found between chronic male schizophrenics receiving phenothiazines and those not so treated. This latter comparison may however be questioned on the grounds that the treatment had consisted not of chlorpromazine alone (which is particularly associated with pigmentation), but of a variety of drugs, including fluphenazine. An ideal, chronically treated group proved impossible to assemble. No support is thus provided for the hypothesis proposed by Greiner & Nicholson linking the supposed chemical basis of schizophrenia with pigmentation.