Manual of Psychiatry

Abstract

WAR has always been the most potent cause of mental and physical suffering among a people; apart from the many direct injuries such as wounds, sickness, and fever which are inflicted upon the fighting forces. In war, military necessities must precede any consideration for the civil population, which experiences stress and strain, two factors that contribute more than any other to the causation of insanity. Far, this xeason we should expect a greater incidence of insanity during war than in peace-time; yet, although this war has lasted nearly three years, and much pain, great sorrow, and almost unendurable grief have been borne, there has, been less registered insanity than occurred before the war, and on January 1, 1916, there were 3278 fewer cases than the year before. The causes for this diminished incidence are many. In the first place, it is a fact of experience that one great emotion is less frequently the cause of insanity than are the many small, but continuing, marginal, subconscious worries, which are always just within the limits of consciousness. It is also common knowledge that the working classes as a whole have been better off financially than in peace-time: the enormous demands of the world-war have created work on a colossal scale; the great industries of the country have been transformed into factories for the output of munitions and into workshops for the production of material for military requirements, and every responsible civilian capable of useful work has had his or her attention fixed, his or her interests maintained, and his or her domestic anxieties relieved. In spite of the greatly enhanced cost of living, difficulties connected with ways and means have even been less felt than in normal times, so that this diminution may be only temporary and due to social and econOmic conditions.

Manual of Psychiatry.

By Dr. J. Rogues de Fursac Dr. A. J. Rosanoff. Fourth edition. Pp. xi + 522. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1916.) Price 10s. 6d. net.