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A woman of 41 complained of "peculiar feelings" in the abdomen, pain in the breasts, and morning sickness. She had not menstruated for eight months. The abdomen " felt tight," and she said it was much larger than usual. Two successive pregnancy tests were negative, and she was shown the results; her comment was: " I question the tests. They may be wrong. I think it's an eight-months pregnancy." The sensations in her abdomen, were described as " like a mouse."She had married in 1947, and was most eager to have a child. No contraceptives were employed, yet she did not

Section ofPaediatrics 329 presumably responsible for the hypertension, indicates that some dopamine-f-hydroxylase activity was present. Dopamine and noradrenaline similarly attest to the presence of dopa decarboxylase. Although it is tempting to suggest that the diarrhcea in this syndrome is caused by dopamnine, there is little evidence at present to support this view. Large amounts of an unknown catecholamine, detected chromatographically, in urine extracts from our patient, might equally well be the cause. No excess of 5-hydroxyindole acetic acid, the major metabolite of 5-hydroxytryptamine, was detected in the urine. This case will be published in full elsewhere.

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