Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/279

NEW BOOKS. 265 that emotion is identical with its bodily concomitants " . . . set up the bodily changes and the feeling of them and we have the emotion that belongs to them even without the idea " (p. 14) is not strong enough for a lasting theory of aesthetics. Nevertheless I have read the book with real pleasure and hope others may do so. An English writer dis- posed to take seriously to the study of aesthetics certainly deserves encouragement. DAVID MORRISON. Psychiatry ; A Text-Book for Students and Physicians. By STBWAET PATON, M.D., Associate in Psychiatry, the John Hopkins University, Baltimore. Philadelphia and London : J. P. Lippincott Co., 1905. Pp. xii, 618. Price 18s. net. This book, as the title indicates, aims at systematising the clinical study of insanity. The first two chapters, covering the scope of modern me- thods and the nature of the disease process in alienation, attempt a general orientation of the subject ; but they are not entirely successful, being here and there somewhat indefinite. The student may get the impression that " a naive psychology founded upon theory and specula- tion " (p. 3) is all that psychology as hitherto studied has to offer, a somewhat important mistake. But what the author offers is, occasion- ally, somewhat naive as psychology, and he fails to recognise that " those morbid conditions of the human body commonly but erroneously de- scribed as mental diseases " (Preface) may, according to the point of view, be quite correctly described as mental diseases. The aim of these chapters is to indicate the positively scientific standpoint ; but the ex- position is rather overloaded with authorities and based upon a rather inadequate analysis. Under the Symptoms of Alienation (chap. iii. ) we find a general exposition of " Impairment of the Higher Cortical Functions, as Shown in Defects of Judgment and Intellect," and " fixed or insane ideas " ; also disorders of attention, of sensation (including hallucina- tions), of consciousness, of association, of memory, of volition, of emotion, of conduct. But here again the sequence of topics is not very well maintained and the analysis of the concrete cases is not driven home. There are many good paragraphs, but the general impression is some- what confused. Chapter iv., on the method of examination of patients, is on the whole well done. Chapter v. , on the treatment of alienation, omits nothing of importance. The paragraph on " Mental Treatment " (suggestion) is inadequate. Chapter vi., on Hospitals, gives some general directions. Among the causes of insanity (chap, vii.) are enumerated heredity, environment, imitation and suggestion, sex, age, education and fatigue, trauma, etc., as in most text-books. The chapter contains little that is new ; but, as in all the more recent text-books, toxic influences of every kind receive special attention. The provisional clinical grouping of mental diseases (chap, viii.) frankly gives up any attempt at scientific classification. As the author becomes more clinical, he becomes much more definite and adequate. There is a good chapter on the defect psychoses (chap, ix.), another on fever psychoses the deliria, auto- intoxications, confusional insanity, etc. ; another good chapter on chronic intoxications alcoholism, morphinism, etc. Chapter xiii. deals with the " Manic-depressive group," a name that indicates the more modern view of so-called " mania " and " melancholia ". The Dementia Praecox group is dealt with in some detail ; but here, as in the Paranoia group (chap, xx.), it is extremely difficult to " delimit the frontiers" where the mental variations are so elusive, and the author has to rely, after all, more on purely mental symptoms than on any precisely ascertainable physical