PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE 179 



free association experiment, the technique of the " psychogalvanic " 

 reflex, or some allied method, the properties of the work-curve and a 

 few of the less equivocal methods for determining it, and the better 

 developed forms of memory experimentation. Nor should I question 

 the inclusion of the Binet- Simon tests, though without personal experi- 

 ence with them. It would lead too far afield to explain just why these 

 particular experimental methods have been spoken of and not others, 

 but suffice it to express every assurance that they are among the methods 

 most helpful to the better understanding of those cases with which 

 psychiatric clinics are replete. It is true that such division would form 

 practically separate units in the course, and they could be taken up in 

 any desirable order, save that, e. g., certain phases of the association 

 experiment and the " psychogalvanic " reflex are best considered to- 

 gether. Whether the content of a laboratory course were as above or 

 something totally different, it must be governed essentially by its medical 

 usefulness, and those features included which best justify themselves in 

 this light. How much time can be given, and when, depends of course 

 on administrative factors; all the time that Watson suggests could be 

 profitably used, and it should be so ordered as to be convenient for those 

 who take up the special work given in mental diseases. 



Such, in principle, is the writer's conception of a laboratory course 

 likely to be of most value to students of medicine, nor would it be 

 claimed that its subject matter could be effectively dealt with under 

 other than laboratory conditions. There yet remains that considerable 

 body of psychological problems whose concern with medicine is not less 

 immediate than those above, but whose relation to experimental, or 

 indeed in any way objective, methods, is at present very indefinite. 

 They are essentially problems of psychogenesis — the development of 

 the various mental reactions and tendencies of which individual char- 

 acter and temperament are built up. It is readily discernible that a 

 growing emphasis is laid in psychopathology upon the determining if 

 not conditioning role of psychogenic factors in a variety of conditions, 

 ranging from hysteria to the manic-depressive group ; though the scien- 

 tific development of methods, or their application to the study of normal 

 mental reaction types, has been largely conspicuous in absence. 



It is this phase of the situation that looms largest in Meyer's vision, 6 

 with especial regard to its problems. The point of view goes back to 

 some basal concepts of " mental reaction " 7 and the remarks repre- 

 sented a none the less forceful, if indirect, criticism of the conventional 

 Fragestellung in its relation to the problems on the pathological side. 

 While at various times psychological writers have deprecated the tend- 

 encies inherent, from a scientific standpoint, in many doctrines associ- 



*Journ. Am. Med. Assoc, March 30, 1912, 911-914. 



7 Most simply outlined in the Psychological Clinic, June, 1908, 89-101. 



