PAPERS PRESENTED AT GENERAL SESSIONS 41 



gard to this very large and important problem, a func- 

 tion which it has not exercised sufficiently up to date. 



The applications of psychiatry as a part of Public 

 Health to the behavior problems of the community are 

 not, however, confined to the group of the feebleminded. 

 Keeping in mind the essential importance of the patho- 

 logical, it is clear that medicine has developed to the point 

 where it is able to render a service in connection with be- 

 havior problems which are even less obviously matters of 

 mental disorder than is feeble-mindedness. In the first 

 place, there has been an extension of psychiatry during 

 the last few years to include a consideration of not only 

 the gross behavior disorders such as criminality and de- 

 linquency, but less obvious difficulties affecting the happi- 

 ness and success of individuals and families. As I have 

 said before, medical science has made it possible to live 

 in large, congested centers of population. We have con- 

 quered the physical obstacles and we are now coping 

 with the mental difficulties. There are a great many 

 manifestations of individual weaknesses, of nervous dis- 

 orders in themselves unimportant, perhaps, but decisive 

 in their effect upon the economic and social life of the in- 

 dividual. Our experience during the war with shell 

 shocked cases, in which the American Army justly de- 

 serves great credit, shows what correctional therapy can 

 do in dealing with behavior jDroblems. Shell shock, or 

 more properly, war neurosis, belongs to the group of 

 psycho-neurosis, hysteria, and neurasthenia. Though 

 more spectaclar than the ordinary manifestation of t 

 disorders in civil life it does not differ in quality from the 

 latter. The same procedure which worked so well with 

 the military cases secures favorable results with the 

 others. It is interesting to note, however, that the world 

 has been dealing with these manifestations since time 

 immemorial without recognizing that they represented 

 a medical problem. Disciplinary measures of the crud- 

 est kind have always been resorted to in the attempt to 

 correct such behavior. In war time summary court mar- 

 tial, execution, disgrace and imprisonment were always 

 relied upon to achieve results. These same methods in 

 perhaps less summary form are constantly being applied 



