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Hattingberg, the editor of this series, presents us with a bouquet of twelve dark-gold brochures, intended to elucidate nervousness 'in a form intelligible to any educated person who has had no previous special knowledge of the subject.' He deals himself with the themes: 'Is nervousness a disease?', 'The mental background of nervousness, ' and 'Disposition and environment.' Professor Schultz discusses with greater clarity the more objective questions, 'Nervousness and hereditary taint' and 'Suggestion and hypnosis.' Marcinowski writes in a refreshingly positive fashion on the 'Problems and practice of sexual enlightenment, ' and, in the other three brochures on 'The feelings of guilt, ' 'The sense of inferiority, ' and the difficult subject of 'Emotional distraction (derangement).' Meyer's contributions on 'The nervous heart' and 'Nervous disease of stomach and bowels' are particularly primitive in their surface-psychology. Finally Mohr discusses suggestively the connection between 'Nervousness and organic disease.'
Despite all the earnest endeavours of these writers, who for the most part water down psycho-analytical doctrine with Adler's ideas, the aim of this series seems scarcely attainable: for healthy people have seldom much interest in psychological discussions of this sort, while those who are ill are often only made thoroughly hypochondriacal by the reading of medical books.