[Therapy and course of alcoholic delirium]

During the past ten years, treatment of delirium alcoholicum was almost exclusively by means of chlormethiazol (distraneurin), an agent which has sedative, hypnotic, and antiepileptic effects. A total of 111 deliriants with single and multiple deliria were subjected to 151 treatments. In the majority of cases the state of delirium was overcome after three days of specific treatment. The case histories of three patients, where the course of disease was extremely severe and additionally complicated by secondary diseases and who died during treatment (the percentage being 0.7% relative to 151 cases of treatment), are discussed in detail. In the case of severe states of delirium accompanied by repsiratory diseases it is necessary that the patient receiving specific treatment be supplied with additional amounts of oxygen because distraneurin, like other sedatives, trends to reduce the utilization of oxygen under certain conditions. The majority of deliriants were in their third to fourth decades of life. Accordingly, our patients were younger than those included in the reports presented by other authors. Also discussed by the present authors are attacks accompanying the state of delirium as well as concomitant diseases complicating the clinical picture and adverse effects of alcohol on the nervous system.