SECTION G PSYCHIATRY 



(Hall 7, September 22, 10 a. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: DR. WILLIAM A. WHITE, Government Hospital for Insane, Wash- 

 ington, D. C. 

 SPEAKERS: DR. CHARLES L. DANA, Cornell Medical School, New York. 



DR. EDWARD COWLES, Boston. 

 SECRETARY: DR. C. G. CHADDOCK, St. Louis, Mo. 



PSYCHIATRY IN ITS RELATION TO OTHER SCIENCES 



BY CHARLES LOOMIS DANA 



[Charles Loomis Dana, Professor of Nervous and ad interim Mental Diseases, 

 Cornell University Medical College, New York; Visiting Physician, Belle vue 

 Hospital ; Neurologist to the Montefiore Hospital, b. Woodstock, Vermont, 

 March 25, 1852. A.B. Dartmouth, 1872; A.M. ibid. 1875; M.D. College of 

 Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York; LL.D. Dartmouth, 

 1905; Professor of Comparative Physiology, Columbia School of Compara- 

 tive Medicine, 1879-82 ; Professor of Physiology, Woman's Medical College 

 of New York Infirmary, 1882-90; Professor of Nervous Mental Diseases, 

 Post-graduate Medical School, 1886-96; Professor of Nervous Diseases, 

 Dartmouth College, 1892-95 ; ibid. Cornell University Medical College, 1896. 

 Member (ex-President) of the New York Neurological Society; American 

 Neurological Association ; Charaka Club ; President, New York Academy 

 of Medicine; American Association for Advancement of Science. Author of 

 numerous articles and monographs on nervous and mental diseases.] 



THE task of preparing an address upon the relations of psychiatry 

 to other sciences presents some embarrassments. Psychiatry itself, 

 in its narrower sense, is the science that deals with the phenomena 

 of disordered minds. But the psychiatrist has also an applied science 

 to utilize, or in reality a business to perform, which engages much of 

 his energy, and is a very dominant thing in his professional life. 

 This business is that of the administration and care of the insane, 

 and it is hard to ignore its immense importance in discussing psych- 

 iatry from any broad standpoint. 1 Indeed, one may say that the 

 most real advance in the treatment of insanity lies in the improved 

 methods of hospital care that have been developed in the last thirty 

 years. Still, the science of psychiatry, as pursued by the clinician 

 and the pathologist, is that phase of it which must, for our present 

 purposes, be set apart and its "problems" and "relations" studied. 



1 Among 5470 contributions to psychiatry made during the five years, 1894- 

 1899 (Jahresberichte fur Psychiatric u. Neurologic), the number devoted to differ- 

 ent groups of subjects was as follows: General symptoms, pathology and etiology, 

 1749; special psychopathology and therapy, 1581; administrative methods and 

 reports, 1286; forensic medicine, 854. Thus writings concerning administrative 

 care make up over 20 per cent of the total literature of psychiatry. 



