Blepharospasm--oromandibular dystonia (Meige's syndrome) misdiagnosed as secondary hemifacial spasm.

Orofacial dyskinesia (Meige's syndrome) is a rare clinical entity. This disorder was first described in 1910 by Henry Meige as "spasm facial median," a disabling spasm of the facial musculature which had frequently been misdiagnosed and inappropriately treated. This report concerns a patient who presented with tonic hemifacial spasm twenty-two years after contracting Bell's palsy. The condition was initially thought to be secondary to faulty regeneration of the facial nerve until Meige's syndrome became fully manifested over a period of two years. The diagnostic characteristics as well as the forms of treatment for this unusual disorder are presented.

The effect of plasma from psychotic children on tryptophan uptake in chicken erythrocytes.

Ten children diagnosed as psychotic by the DeMeyer-Churchill guidelines were matched for age and sex with ten non-psychotic but emotionally disturbed children. Six of the ten pairs were medication free. In four of the ten pairs, at least one member was medicated at the time of testing. The plasma of the children diagnosed as psychotic caused a significantly (p less than 0.025) greater uptake of tryptophan by chicken red blood cells than did the serum of their control group. This is the same effect on tryptophan uptake as found when the plasma of adult patients with process schizophrenia is incubated with chicken erythrocytes and tryptophan. This finding lends support to the possibility that there is a subgroup of childhood psychotic patients who have a biological disturbance similar to that found in adult process schizophrenia patients.