You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The opening chapter traces in an interesting way the psychology of the soldier from the recruiting office to the firing line and the second chapter gives an account of military psychiatry previous to 1914 so that a comparison may be made with the prevalence of mental disorders during the war.
The rest of the book is a review of the war from a psychiatric standpoint and few are more capable of performing this task than Dr. Read, for he was Officer in charge of D Block, Netley, for the greater part of the war, and in peace time he had had much experience as medical officer to a large institution for the insane. Moreover, he is up to date and a strict Freudian, as will be seen by reading his book.
The organization for dealing with mental cases in the army is described in detail and he gives the number of such cases received at Netley in the form of a chart, which demonstrates a steady rise during the five years of the war. As the author points out, this is partly due to the gradually increasing size of the army but also to careless methods of recruiting.
The various mental disorders (dementia praecox, paranoia, general paralysis, etc.) are then systematically described, especially in their relationship to war and war conditions, and 32 cases are more or less fully described.
The book is well written and well got up and it contains sound criticisms, which should be taken to heart, of several military and civilian customs in the treatment of the insane.