45^ 



NATURE 



[October 13, 1910 



PS\CUl.\TR\ .LVD P.SrCHOTH£R.lPr. 

 (i) .4 Text-book of Mental Diseases. By Prof. 



Eugenio Tanzi. Authorised translation from tlie 



Italian by Dr. \V. Ford Robertson and Dr. T. C. 



MacKenzie. Pp. xvi + 803. (London : Rebman, 



Ltd., 1909.) Price 244. net. 

 (2) Psychotherapy. By Prof. Hugo Munsterberg. 



Pp. .\i + 4oi. (London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1909.) 



Price 8i. 6d. net. 



I^'HESE two books appeared towards the end of 

 last year, the one being a thoroughly up-to-date 

 work on psychology, normal and morbid, and the 

 other dealing with the psychical treatment of disease, 

 especially of mental disorder. 



(i) Prof. Tanzi's book has already been published 

 in Italy for nearly five years and from the first has 

 been recognised as a standard work on mental 

 diseases. It begins w'ith a study of the seat of the 

 psychical processes and considers seriatim the data of 

 physiology and experimental anatomy, embryology, 

 pathology and normal anatomy. Then follows a dis- 

 course on the causation of mental diseases, and there 

 is a chapter on the morbid anatomy of the brain, 

 microscopical and macroscopical, in respect of mental 

 diseases. About 150 pages are devoted to psychology 

 of a practical kind, under the headings of sensibility 

 ("sensation" would have been a better translation), 

 ideation, sentiment, movements and other external re- 

 actions. This last chapter is really a disquisition on 

 the conduct of the insane and deals with anomalies 

 of the will, of the instincts, of emotional expression 

 and of speech and writing. The classification adopted 

 is mainly that of Kraepelin, but the author does not 

 follow that authority with any slavish rigidity. 



It will seem curious to English physicians to find 

 the study of mental diseases beginning with that of 

 pellagra, but it will not be forgotten that this disease 

 plays almost as large a rdle in some parts of Italy as 

 general paralysis does in this country. 



Many will object to the use of the term "amentia" 

 in the sense of acute confusional insanity or acute 

 hallucinatory insanity ; but this is the sense in which 

 the word has been used on the Continent ever since 

 the days of Meynert, whereas in this country 

 "amentia" means idiocy or imbecility. The term 

 maniacal-depressive insanity does not appear; but 

 melancholia, periodic melancholia, periodic mania, and 

 circular insanity are discussed under the heading of 

 "the affective psychoses." 



Paranoia is more clearly defined and receives fuller 

 consideration than we have seen in any other text- 

 book. The author divides paranoiacs into those with 

 abstract delusions (mattoids) and those with an ego- 

 centric delusion (the querulants, the persecuted, the 

 erotic and the ambitious). Under these various 

 headings there are interesting references to the 

 history of the Middle Ages and to the peculiarities of 

 certain primitive races. There are also some very 

 full accounts of individual cases of paranoia. 



The chapter on constitutional immorality is well 



worth reading. Prof. Tanzi takes a broad view of 



the subject, and criticises the penal law on the one 



hand and the narrow views of some of his own 



NO. 2137, VOL. 84] 



countrymen on the other. He rightly condemns stig- 

 matising a person as a criminal merely because he 

 possesses a certain number of the physical stigmata 

 of degeneration, such, as a Darwinian ear, plagio- 

 cephaly, hexadactylism, &c. 



There is a full and excellent index. The book is 

 well illustrated and got up, and there are 132 figures 

 which materially assist the reader in understanding 

 the text. 



(2) Prof. Munsterberg divides his book into three 

 parts, the first being on the " Psychological Basis of 

 Psychotherapy," the second on the " Practical Work 

 of Psychotherapy," and the third on the " ' Place ' of 

 Psychotherapy." 



Part i. seems rather unnecessary to anybody who 

 has studied psychology before and, to the practical 

 physician, part iii. will appear rather redundant, as it 

 deals with the relation of psychotherapy to the church, 

 &c. The essential section of the book is part ii., and 

 this will be found exceedingly interesting. It treats 

 of the conditions in which psychotherapy is likely to 

 be of use, general and special methods, and of mental 

 and bodily symptoms. The special methods discussed 

 are suggestion, hypnotism, side-tracking and psycho- 

 analysis. 



The methods of psycho-analysis are beginning to be 

 well understood in this country, although they have 

 not yet reached the popularity they have in Austria, 

 where the name of Freud, the propounder of its prin- 

 ciples, has become a household word. Freud and his 

 followers hold that by the psycho-analytic method they 

 are able to discover in a patient some long-forgotten 

 memory, and that in their discovery they bring to the 

 surface a source of mental irritation, thus removing 

 from the mind a foreign body in the same way as a 

 surgeon picks a thorn from the finger. English 

 physicians are disinclined to regard the method in this 

 light ; they consider that the proceeding is rather one 

 of suggestion to the patient. The patient lies on a 

 sofa whilst the operator sits at his head and reels off 

 a series of words to which the patient is required to 

 fit associated ideas ; and the operator subsequently, 

 from the study of the patient's associations, evolves 

 some incident in his past history. This he relates to 

 the patient, and hey, presto! recovery. The same 

 result, however, may be quite w-ell attained by taking 

 a careful history of the patient's past life. Psycho- 

 analysis is most suited for hysterical patients, but 

 Miinsterberg recommends it for cases of psychasthenia. 

 Side-tracking is a somew-hat different principle 

 which, however, may be used in conjunction with 

 psycho-analysis. Patients suffering from psychasthenia 

 are obsessed with some thought which they are unable 

 to dispel. By psycho-analytic methods the physician 

 searches for an origin of the obsession and then, by 

 devices of various kinds (side-tracking), he diverts the 

 patient's thoughts from the original incident into 

 different channels. To take an example, a man found 

 that he had developed a tendency to hesitate when 

 walking in the street, arid was unable to cure himself. 

 Munsterberg was consulted, and found that on a cer- 

 tain occasion when the patient was running to catch a 

 tram he suddenly saw almost immediately before him a 

 big hole dug out for laying gas pipes. He was able 



