A RETROSPECT OF MODERN PSYCHIATRY. 
9 
whole and not as a mere aggregation of separate individuals living 
separate lives. Such change did not occur overnight nor is it complete. 
Whilst it is true to say that psychiatry has outgrown its swaddling- 
clothes and can use its eyes with advantage, it cannot see all, but the 
same might be said of all departments of knowledge for there is always 
further knowledge over the horizon. 
During the latter part of the 19th century, psychiatry was largely 
based on materialism. This attitude persisted into the present century 
as may be seen from the attention given in the journals to brain 
structure and clinical tests. It is true that Braid and Bertrand pro- 
duced mesmerism by suggestion and coined the term hypnotism but this 
psychological attitude was unusual. It received an impetus through 
the impressive work of Charcot in the seventies and eighties on 
hysteria and hypnotism. 
Following this one must chronicle the activities of a group of men 
who hammered the psychological viewpoint to a point when it dominated 
the entire psychiatric picture. We must include Babinski, Dubois and 
Dejerine, Coue, Janet, Adler, Jung, Morton Prince, Watson, McDougall, 
Rivers and Freud. 
It must be conceded that spectators on the arena of the psychiatric 
battleground have had a remarkable experience. As each teacher 
advanced his views he collected followers who formed a “ school of 
thought.’ ’ Whilst at the time, this differentiation seemed reasonable, 
to-day the lines of demarcation seem tenuous and flimsy. Through 
death the colourful and forceful leaders have departed, leaving us free 
to abstract from each according to our needs and to collate without 
prejudice or bias. Only the mentally blind will deny us the existence 
of a glorious heritage. 
As this is a short personal retrospect, one cannot be expected to 
give honour to all. One must mention Freud for his dynamic concept 
of the striving soul, impelled by the race-need for reproduction, Rivers 
for his insistence on the importance of current happenings to the psyche, 
MacDougall for stressing the variety of emotional and instinctive forces 
which pattern our lives, Adler for teaching the role of inferiority 
striving for recognition, Dubois for his realisation of the power of 
persuasion, Watson for showdng the importance of the study of animal 
behaviour, Kraepelin and Janet for indicating the need for careful 
case-taking in medical records, Binet and Simon for demonstrating that 
any careful analysis may have far-reaching results, Jung for his analysis 
of psychological types. 
It must not be thought that the ranks of the materialists were 
silent during the period under review. Kretschmer stressed the 
importance of body-type on character and temperament. The 
endocrinologists draw our attention to internal secretions which 
dominate personality. Cotton and Robertson will not let us forget the 
devastating role of constipation and focal sepsis. Our dietitians 
thundered the need for a balanced intake of food. To-day, thanks to 
this spate of ideas, w^e are able to survey the wdiole field of human 
endeavour and envisage each problem in an appropriate setting. Our 
knowledge of the bipolarity of our lives, the interrelation of cause and 
effect, between self and environment, between “I, you and they, our 
betwixt and betweens and surroundings” has created the new psychiatry 
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