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PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF QUEENSLAND. 
Progress is discontinuous and at times erratic. Discoveries are kept 
for decades in the cold store of forgotten memories. Research in one 
field produces results in unexpected places. Above all we are reminded 
that all knowledge is interrelated. The observation of a fruit may give 
clues as to the working of a planet, the study of a flea may permit the 
saving of a million human lives. Such facts are reminders of the need 
for intellectual freedom without which progress cannot escape the 
strangle-hold of outworn tradition. 
PSYCHIATRY DEFINED. 
I propose in this address to give a brief retrospect of modern 
psychiatry, touching on changes which have occurred during my own 
lifetime and largely during the period I have been a practising 
psychiatrist. It will be seen in the course of this retrospect that the 
psychiatrist has borrowed profitably from the bank of science. 
Psychiatry is a field of medicine whose boundaries are extensive but 
vague and ill-defined, for at the one extreme we see conditions which 
are entirely functional, being unassociated with demonstrable physical 
change, and at the other there are grossly organic diseases. The 
psychiatrist is concerned with the disorders of a psycho-somatic (or 
mind-body) nature, not with diseases affecting tissues or organs, or 
systems of organs. In fact he is dealing with the total reaction of 
patients as social or biological units. The total reactions of individuals 
are designated as behaviour. The purpose then of psychiatry is to 
study and treat conditions characterised by disordered behaviour. 
Biologically considered, behaviour is the product of the reciprocal 
reactions between the organism and its environment. As pointed out 
by Dr. S. E. Jones the reactions have a double polarity, for the 
individual modifies and acts upon his environment and the environment 
acts upon the individual. This double aspect is important in psychiatry 
because behaviour disorders are largely determined by the influencing 
of environment on the individual. Thus it wall be seen that psychiatry 
is concerned with highly complex relationships over a very wide field 
from that of the welfare of the individual to that of the entire 
community. 
GENERAL PARALYSIS OF THE INSANE. 
It is fitting to commence this retrospect by a consideration of 
General Paralysis of the Insane for it was the first psychiatric entity 
to be identified. The clinical and pathological changes were completely 
defined in 1826. 
When I first took up a position in a large mental hospital, it was 
a common sight to see rows of beds in which general paralytics were 
lying, paralysed in body, bankrupt in mind, surviving in mere vegetable 
fashion and awaiting the inevitable termination in death which came 
within a year of hospitalisation. 
To-day the young psychiatrist rarely sees such a case. The course 
of this disease has been entirely changed. The steps toward this truly 
dramatic alteration in outlook are intriguing. 
It was not until late in the 19th century that syphilis was generally 
accepted as the cause of this disease. Previously many authorities 
regarded it as due to the ‘ ‘ stress of modern life 9 ’ owing to the fact that 
it was most common in members of the learned professions and Army 
officers. 
