It's pretty wild

In 1959, Dr. Sten Martens, along with colleagues Sven Vallbo and Bengt Melander, published their findings in a paper titled "Studies on the Role of Ceruloplasmin in Schizophrenia" (also presented as "An Approach to Biochemical Therapy in Schizophrenia").

• The Experiment: The researchers intravenously injected purified ceruloplasmin (the blue, copper-carrying blood protein) into 30 human patients diagnosed with acute, subacute, or chronic schizophrenia.

• The Claims: They reported a "favorable modification" (clinical improvement) in 26 out of the 30 patients. They hypothesized that ceruloplasmin acted as a protective agent that could bind to and neutralize toxic, psychotropic substances in the blood (such as adrenaline metabolites or histamine).

The Tulane Connection: Taraxein and Copper

Dr. Martens' work was deeply intertwined with the broader research happening at Tulane University under Dr. Robert Heath.

• The Taraxein Hypothesis: In 1956, Heath's Tulane group announced they had extracted a unique toxic protein from the blood of schizophrenic patients, which they named "taraxein". They claimed that injecting taraxein into healthy human volunteers temporarily induced full psychotic and catatonic symptoms of schizophrenia.

• The Ceruloplasmin Link: The Tulane researchers initially believed taraxein was closely related to, or an abnormal aberration of, ceruloplasmin. Because schizophrenic patients were observed to oxidize adrenaline faster in test tubes, they thought treating patients with healthy, massive doses of normal ceruloplasmin injections would reverse or "buffer" the psychosis.