8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF QUEENSLAND. 
lady suifers from water-pressure change in her semicircular canal. If 
she excludes salt from the diet and uses a substitute for the Sodium 
radicle, the giddiness will disappear. The fireman must take more salt. 
Case 3 . — Twenty years ago a sleepy man who, because of nervous- 
ness, could not smash with a racket or hook a fish was just another 
example of “ nerves / 9 Now we see the characteristic story of “Idio- 
pathic Narcolepsy ” for which there is a specific remedy in Ephedrine or 
Benzedrine. 
Case 4. — To-day the combination of fever and drowsiness followed 
by character changes is so clear that even the tyro can make a diagnosis 
of sleeping sickness or Encephalitis Lethargica due to an infection of the 
brain. Such cases and their variants are quite common. It is interest- 
ing to note that the first recognition occurred by Constantin von 
Economo in 1917 and was later identified with a “mysterious disease,’’ 
occurring in Australia in the same year. 
As Professor Economo says: — 
“Every psychiatrist who wishes to probe into the phenomena of 
disturbed mobility and changes of character, the psychological 
mechanism of mental inaccessability, of the neuroses, etc., must be 
thoroughly acquainted with the experience gathered from Encephalitis 
Lethargica. 
Every psychologist who in future attempts to deal with psycho- 
logical phenomena .... and is not well acquainted with encephalitic 
patients .... will build on sand. ’ ’ 
Had I the time, I would have liked to describe other entities, such 
as the role of vegetable or animal extracts (or chemical substitutes) and 
vitamins in assisting the psychiatric patient. It is not merely in those 
serious cases such as Pernicious Anaemia or Myasthenia Gravis that the 
new knowledge has been important. To-day the woman in every home 
who is going through the menopause can do so with an ease unknown to 
her mother. We are beginning to use the endocrine glands with good 
and indeed often brilliant results. 
Concerning Vitamins, the discovery of the B1 and B2 complex 
has opened new avenues of treatment. With their aid we can achieve 
the hitherto impossible. It is spectacular to see a crippled neuritic 
almost take up his bed and walk. It is satisfying to be able to help the 
array of the debilitated through the avitamosis of a faulty diet, take on 
a new life of increased happiness and efficiency. 
Were the time available it would be profitable to discuss the problem 
of allergy, which relates to our sensitivities toward a wide series of sub- 
stances, both in the body and without. We are realizing such 
mechanisms may give headaches and other symptoms. Often the patient 
manufactures his own poisons. 
THE SOCIAL SPHERE. 
The above references will I trust serve to emphasise the wide scope 
of psychiatry and its linkage with diverse studies. I shall conclude by 
drawing your attention to the extraordinary change which has occurred 
in our appreciation of the psychology of man the individual and of man 
in the mass. There has been a profound revolution in our viewpoint, so 
that we are beginning to see the world as it is — a correlated living 
