Thorazine and Phenobarbital, the base line drugs used in the study, and Trilafon showed no significant change in tapping rates. With a single exception, these statements apply to all four types of tapping: forefinger, middle finger, simultaneous, and alternating. No differences were found among the first three kinds of tapping, but results based on these were different from those obtained with alternating pressings. The two behavior scales which were used in the study, the Lorr and Schedule B, detected significant emotional improvement during the medication period. No significant relations, however, were found between these scales and tapping speed although the data were in the direction of improved status and decrease in speedprobably due to the retarding effects of the new drugs. 6. SHAKOW, D. and HUSTON, P. . Studies of motor function in schizophrenia: I. Speed of tapping. 7. Veterans Administration: Cooperative studies of chemotherapy in psychiatry, Project No. 3, evaluation of phenyltoloxamine a new phrenotropic agent. Am.

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In their letter (Journal, May :973) Drs. Kendell and Post report that they have obtained a trimodal combined distribution of the scores of 27: patients on the Newcastle diagnostic index (Carney a al., 1965). They claim, however, that their trimodal distribution is devoid of meaning and a statistical artefact. To take first the meaning ofthe observations : when Kendell and Post's combined distribution, which is reproduced below, is examined, it is apparent that there is a dip at score 5 (the frequency at this score is only 22, whereas both adjoining frequencies are 3). Scores of Maudsley cases on the Newcastle Scale between his psychotic and neurotic patients. The dip in Kendeil's (:g68) individual distribution occurs at precisely the same score. Drs. Kendell and Post can hardly be regarded as having been biased in favour of bimodality. Yet the distributions they have both, independently, found conform, in relation to the dip at score 5, to that reported by Carney et al. (:965), which led them (Carney et al.) to conclude that there were at least two distinct groups of depressed patients.