Book Notices

BEETHOVEN AND HIS NEPHEW, by Editha and Richard Sterba, translated by Willard R. Trask. New York: Pantheon Books, 1954, 352 pp., $5.00.

Disclaiming any "intention of making a psychological study of Beethoven's works or of his creative gift or activity, " the authors attempt to reach the psychological truth concerning the behavior of this fascinating human being. This "truth" consists essentially of the story of the tragic consequences of Beethoven's pathological love for his nephew Karl, which was the chief expression of his unsuccessful attempts to reconcile "the polarity between the male and female principle" in his personality.

BEYOND THE GERM THEORY. THE ROLES OF DEPRIVATION AND STRESS IN HEALTH AND DISEASE, edited by Iago Galdston. New York: Health Education Council, 1954, 182 pp., $4.00.

An extension, revision and integration of material presented at the 12th Annual Eastern States Health Education Conference sponsored by the New York Academy of Medicine. Eleven papers emphasize the disease-producing effects of deprivation and stress, and are divided into four parts, "The Dynamics of Deprivation and Stress, " "Nutritional Deprivation and Stress, " "Psychological Deprivation and Stress, " and "Social Stress and Deprivation." The material of the book centers around the concepts of Claude Bernard ("the internal milieu"), Walter Cannon ("homeostasis"), and Hans J. Selye ("the stress syndrome"). Psychoanalytic contributors are René A. Spitz, "Unhappy and Fatal Outcomes of Emotional Deprivation and Stress in Infancy"; and Abram Kardiner, "The Emotional Effects of Social Stress and Deprivation, I and II."

DANIEL PAUL SCHREBER. MEMOIRS OF MY NERVOUS ILLNESS, translated and edited with introduction, notes and discussion by Ida Macalpine and Richard A. Hunter. London: William Dawson and Sons, Ltd., 1955, 416 pp., £1, 15s.

This book makes available in English translation for the first time the classic memoirs of Schreber. The introduction, by the translators,