I. The patient in hospital. Psychological effects of amputation. (a) General depression with loss of courage and desire for life. (b) Inhibition of general motor activity. (c) Tendency to withdraw from reality, accompanied by physical and mental sense of loss of personal worth.

This condition has to be met by diverting the patient's thoughts from himself. This is attempted by various methods. (1) Providing books, lectures, entertainments, etc. (2) Providing work to rekindle his interest in life. (3) Placing him with other patients who have also suffered amputation.

Effect of amputation on different temperaments. Three groups. (1) Those who give up completely and consider that the State should support them. (2) Those who are determined that their condition shall not unfit them for life. (3) The largest group which comes between these two. The higher the degree of education, the easier it is to renew the interest in life.

Psychogenic muscle exercises. The patient is directed to think that he is. making certain movements in the lost limb. This brings into play the muscles which remain in the stump and the body. Paraesthesia in patients suffering from amputation.

II. The patient and the artificial limb. The patient should be allowed as much choice as possible in order to get him to use the limb. His psychology should be taken into account in the choice of the artificial limb and of the occupation for which it is designed and he is to be trained. If possible, it should enable him to return to his former occupation. Various types of limbs. Where the patient has to move muscles to work them, the movements should correspond to those to which his brain was accustomed in moving the real limb. Considerations of fatigue and strain of attention.

III. The patient and his will to work. "Pension-fear." Care should be taken not to put him into occupation for which he is unsuited. An occupation where he is his own master is best. Necessity of providing an artificial limb soon.

C. M. B.

Psychodiagnostic: Methodik und Ergebnisse eines wahrnehmungs-diagnostischen Experiments (Deutenlassen von Zufallsformen). By Dr HERMANN RORSCHACH. pp. 174. 1921. Ernst Bircher, Verlag in Bern und Leipzig.

Dr Rorschach describes the methods and results of a psychological experiment, first attempted in 1911, the object of which is to arrive at a diagnosis of the subject's mentality by causing him to interpret certain indeterminate figures with which he is presented.

These figures are produced by blots or smudges upon sheets of paper and the experiment is conducted with ten such sheets, the results in the various cases, both of normal and abnormal persons, being carefully compared. Points noted during the experiment are: the distinctness with which the figure is perceived, the relation between the kinaesthetic factor and that of colour, the apprehension of the figure as a whole or in parts, etc.

From the different modes in which the figures are perceived certain psychological types emerge, broadly divided by the author into (a) types of apprehension (or intelligence), and (b) types of experience (or reaction of life).

(a) Under types of apprehension he distinguishes abstract thinkers, practical men, men of imagination, and so forth, recognised by the so-called components" of intelligence, e.g. concentration.

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(b) Types of experience are determined by the relation between the subject's extraversive and intraversive tendencies, as evidenced in the relation of his perceptions of colour and movement in the test-sheets.

These relations indicate also the labile or stable affectivity of the subject, a preponderating kinaesthesia indicating stability, and the preponderance of colour-perception a labile affectivity.

Correlatives with the "experience-type" are found in certain components of intelligence, conditions of affectivity, characteristics, talents, modes of perception, and types of hallucination and of neurotic or psychotic affectionsthese functions and phenomena being subject to the oscillations in the “experience-type," due to depression, elation, fatigue, etc.

By means of the experiment, variations in the type may be observed and comparisons drawn in the case of individuals and of different sexes, families

or races.

The type, however, merely signifies a form of reaction to, or equipment for, life. Action and content are determined by impulse and trained thinking, and the author points out that such thinking is largely opposed to the capacity for experience. He considers that the experiment has real diagnostic value, whether in estimating the personality of normal people, or in discovering the nature of a psychosis or neurosis. Further, a test of almost universal applicability is provided for conditions of intelligence and affectivity. The book closes with numerous examples, this section including some observations on the relation of the "form-experiment" to psycho-analytic work.

C. M. B.

Psychopathologie der Ausnahmezustände und Psychopathologie des Altags. By Dr ERWIN STRANSKY. Ernst Bircher, Verlag in Bern und Leipzig. Price: Fr. 2, 75.

In accordance with the aims of an applied psychiatry, as stated by him some years ago, the author endeavours to turn to valuable account for the psychology of normal mental processes theories and scientific findings drawn from the psychopathology of abnormal conditions. By this route he arrives at a special conception of the fundamental mental processes in the various abnormal conditions. Deviating somewhat from prevailing views, he regards what is so often looked upon as a "dissociation" or "doubling" of the mental personality as essentially a kind of displacement. The author examines the problem on the one hand from the clinical, and on the other from the psychological, point of view, and by way of individual psychology he takes the opportunity to pass into the realm of social and folk-psychology. Here is ground in many directions unbroken as yet by applied psychology, soil which, as the author emphatically asserts, will yield a rich harvest to those who in the future till it.

While not actually making use in this paper of psycho-analytic considerations, the attitude of the author is by no means one of hostility to, or rejection of, serious, critical psycho-analysis, but he energetically repudiates the more recent attempts to reform psychology from the side of philosophy, regarding them as the very opposite of applied psychiatry.

C. M. B.

NOTES ON RECENT PERIODICALS.

ANNALES MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGIQUES (Series XI-Vol. I).

No. 1. January 1921.

Rapports des commotions de guerre et de la constitution émotive. (Dr H. Le Savoureux.) Does the physical shock produced on the battlefield itself give birth to hyperemotional symptoms through mere mechanical disturbance of the nervous system, without the aid of simultaneous emotional shock or predisposition? Some 200 cases are dealt with.

A propos de la "folie religieuse." (Dr Ch. Ladame.)

Two groups are distinguished: (1) in which the delirious ideas and hallucinations merely reflect the religious belief of the subject; (2) in which the cause is a psychical trauma (most often of a sexual nature).

Contribution à l'étude des formes psychiques de la poliomésencephalite épidémique. (M. Louis Livet.)

Two cases are discussed, the main result arrived at being the diagnostic value of temperature.

Des délires alcooliques à la suite des mesures législatives et administratives prises pendant la guerre. (Dr de Clérambault.)

Statistics are given showing great diminution in number of cases, as a result. De la mimique hallucinatoire et du diagnostic de l'hallucination auditive verbal. (M. Quercy.)

Three cases are dealt with in which the subject, seemingly, denies to his hallucinatory experiences any sensory content.

No. 2. February 1921.

Rapports des commotions de guerre et de la constitution émotive. (Dr H. Le Savoureux.) (Continuation from No. 1.)

A propos de la "folie religieuse." (Dr Ch. Ladame.)

(Also continuation from No. 1.)

Délire érotique avec perversion sexuelle. (Ph. Chaslin et P. Chatelin.)

An interesting account of a case over a period showing several relapses after improvement; in which also remarkable literary ability, foreign to the normal personality, was shown.

Contribution à l'étude comparée des divers traitements actuels de l'épilepsie. (J. Roubinovitch et J. Lauzier.)

A record of experimentation with various drugs.

Syphilis héréditaire et épilepsie. (M. R. Leroy.)

Record of a case of epilepsy completely cured by novarsénobenzol.

Encéphalite épidémique asthénique et myoclonique avec crises bulbaires. Évolution continue depuis plus d'un an. (MM. Raoul Leroy et Roger Dupouy.)

An interesting record of a case leading to the conclusion that "l'agent pathogène” gains entry to the infundibular region and floor of the 3rd ventricle via the nasal passages.

No. 3. March 1921.

La manie chronique. (M. Laignel-Lavastine et Jean Vinchon.)

A description of symptoms with emphasis of the importance of physical symptoms in diagnosis, and that the term 'chronic' does not necessarily imply incurability.

De la kleptomanie au point de vue médico-légal. (Dr August Wimmer.)

A criticism of the position that 'true kleptomania, if it exists at all, is a pathological rarity.'

Mesures de la tension artérielle au cours d'états dépressifs. (Dr H. Beaudouin.)

The conclusion is reached that hypertension is in all cases due to organic trouble. Le tréponème pâle est-il l'agent causal de la paralysie générale? (L. Marchand.) He favours the negative-the cause has yet to be found.

No. 4. April 1921.

Le rôle de l'habitude dans la colonisation familiale des aliénés. (Dalmas et Vinchon.) An interesting discussion with suggestion as to use of "family houses," where conditions will be semi-normal, in treatment of recovering patients.

L'œuvre du dispensaire des maladies mentales à Stockholm. (Dr V. Wigert.)

Emphasis should be laid upon the great need for treatment of cases of worry and slight mental disorder, as in this dispensary.

Délire de négation terminé par guérison considérations sur l'hypochondrie et la mélancolie. (F. Tissot.)

Neurasthenia, hypochondria and melancholia are three forms of the same depressive psycho-neurosis; in all three is found evidence of psychic predisposition, and, objectively, disturbing preoccupation as to the bodily, the mental, or the moral self.

Écrits ironiques d'un paranoiaque halluciné. (Dr F. Usse.)

A low form of humour, immoral and morbid, which may be considered a special perversion of the social instincts.

Un cas de psychose maniaque dépressive à un jour d'alternance. (A. Starobinski.) A case of 30 years' standing.

Mutisme acquis et persistant chez un enfant de 13 ans. (Alfred Gordon.)

An interesting account of a case where total dumbness followed the reading of a story about dumbness, and in which the psychic character of the child was completely changed.

Sur la nature de la démence survenant au cours de certains délires (à propos de deux cas de délire d'influence). (Dr M. Migrard.)

Hallucinations lilliputiennes, délire et puérilisme. (M. E. Martmor.)

No. 5. May 1921.

Les formes verbales de l'interprétation délirante. (Dr Paul Guiraud.)

Two kinds of cases are discriminated: (1) in which the conclusions have logical justification, and are due to a prevailing affective state which produces "polarisation of association of ideas and association of words or syntheses, (2) in which the conclusions have not logical justification, and are due to an organisation of the elements of the central theme according to different laws from those of ordinary psychology, the dominating factor being intensity of "affective potential."

Note sur quelques cas anormaux de mélancolie. (Ph. Chaslin, P. Chatelin, I. Meyerson.) An account of three cases.

Encéphalite épidémique et divorce (contribution à l'étude médico-légale des formes mentales de l'encéphalite épidémique). (M. Georges Petit.)

A woman about to be married became melancholic, declaring she was not fit to marry. Under medical treatment she recovered, but three weeks later relapsed. The marriage took place although she objected. No improvement followed and the husband applied for divorce. The Society discussed the case.

Sur un cas de délire d'interprétation. (Xavier Abély.)

An alcoholic suffered from delusion that his wife was unfaithful. The delusion increased in strength, especially after he became blind. The relative responsibility of diabetes, alcoholism and heredity for his misfortune is discussed.

JOURNAL DE PSYCHOLOGIE NORMALE ET PATHOLOGIQUE

(XVIIIe année).

No. 1. January 1921.

Sur le psychisme inconscient (1) (Fr. Paulhan).

Mental processes, as perception and recognition, which are usually classed as 'conscious' processes may be carried on without any conscious awareness. That which is acquired in this manner unwittingly differs in nowise from that which is obtained unwittingly and may be available to consciousness. That which is perceived, without conscious awareness may later be recognised consciously as known.

Le rire (G. Dumas).

Five problems are dealt with: (1) The anatomical and physiological mechanisms of laughter; (2) Laughter as a psychological state-laughter from pleasure and laughter from perception of the comic are distinguished, the former being a general joie de vivre; (3) The basis of the comic-theories from Aristotle to Bergson discussed; (4) The psychophysical mechanism by which perception produces laughter; (5) Laughter as a social language.

La conscience et la conscience du moi (H. Wallon).

The evolution of self-consciousness from consciousness of an external 'reality.' When full self-consciousness is not attained or is lost-e.g. in the infant, imbecile and chloroformed subject-there is a tendency to exteriorise personal reminiscences. In contrast, the 'self' of fully developed self-consciousness transcends all spatial limitations.

Une adaptation biologique du Freudisme aux psychonévroses de guerre L'instinct et l'inconscient de Rivers (H. Piéron).

A detailed review with sense criticisms the principal one of which is that to see in the psychoneuroses an effort of the organism to regain mental equilibrium may suit Freudian metaphysics but is out of harmony with the spirit of modern biology.

No. 2. February 1921.

De l'automatisme dans l'imitation (H. Delacroix).

Imitation at various levels from voluntary imitation to purely reflex automatic mechanical imitation-its development and relation to language and perception. Les oscillations de l'activité mentale (P. Janet).

A brief outline of a course of study extending from 1918 to 1920.

Sur le psychisme inconscient (2) (Fr. Paulhan).

The supposed difference between unconscious mental activity and conscious mental activity is largely a metaphysical creation. Unconscious processes can be fully described in the same terms as conscious processes.

Sur le phénomène du déjà-vu (A. Gilles).

A short note in support of the view that explanation is to be found in the conscious recognition of things previously perceived subconsciously.

Contribution à l'étude de l'instinct: comportement de quelques araignées (Et. Rabaud). Concludes that certain behaviour of certain spiders cannot be classified fairly as either instinctive or intelligent.

No. 3. March 1921.

Théorie de la perception (B. Bourdon).

Perception in general-perception of space-visual space-visual perception of movement auditory space development of perception of space.

L'orientation lointaine (Ed. Claparède).

Work on the ability of animals to move towards a place apparently desired but not yet an object of perception-the 'homing instinct' etc.-is reviewed and the conclusion reached that the problem is very complex and needs more elucidation.