Edward A. Strecker

Practical clinical psychiatry

each chapter. These indices are qualitative rather than quantitative, yet some idea may be gained from the following: The present volume is enriched by, approximately a thousand new references, nearly two hundred of which refer to the twelve newly included subjects. The remaining eight hundred refer, by and large, to new material. Emphasis has varied from 98 new references for poliomyelitis and 47 for influenza to only 6 new ones for tuberculosis, and this in the face of increasing interest in BCG prophylaxis and streptomycin therapy. In the chapter on Specific.Prevention of Certain Communicable Diseases, no comment was made concerning BCG. There is no appreciable change in the arrangement and presentation of the material-after a very brief general summary of infection, immunity, epidemiology, regulations, specific prevention, serum reactions, and home and hospital management there follows, classified according to portal of entry, an orderly presentation of a number of parasitic diseases, including some helminth, protozoan, fungus, bacterial, spirochetal, virus and rickettsial diseases. The number of illustrations, both color and half tone, has been increased. For those who found the first edition useful, this reviewer strongly recommends this new, larger and more comprehensive edition; for those who are not familiar with the book, it is recommended as a convenient and excellent digest. The index is adequate for the purposes for which the book is intended. E. GURNEY CLARK.

WAR PSYCHIATRY AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON POSTWAR PSYCHIATRY AND UPON CIVILIZATION

The thoughts of a psychiatrist concerning economics are scarcely worth utterance. However, even a psychiatrist may predict that the ultimate cost of the neuropsychiatric disabilities of this global war will be found in those astronomical spaces which are penetrated by the infinity of higher mathematics. Each neuropsychiatric casualty of World War I cost thirty-four thousand dollars. Of all the sickness, surgical and medical, of that miniature conflict, the neuropsychiatric breakdowns constituted I in 7; exclusive of wounds, I in 3. I am not permitted to divulge detailed statistical information, but it is permissible to state that in this war the Army has been discharging soldiers with neuropsychiatric diagnoses at the rate of many thousands per month and it is obvious that the dollar expenditure will be both relatively and absolutely very much greater than in the first World War. Perhaps, at this point, the economics of the neuropsychiatry of this war may be more safely left to the dimensional mathematicians.