Claud Dangar Daly, Lt.-Col. (Ret.), 1884–1950

In the early hours of dawn, every day without fail, year in year out, a young Captain in the Indian Army, whether on frontier duty in Baluchistan or on survey or in barracks, could be found writing out his dreams and, however distasteful it might be, forcing himself to write down his associations to the dream elements. This task was given priority among the day's duties in proportion to the painfulness of that task, which at times was severe, and the more painful, the higher the priority. For years on end he contended with his resistances to self-revelation for three or even four hours out of the twenty-four—two in the morning and as well as at night. Periodically he spent extra hours in reading over these records and drawing inferences from the patterns and sequences they presented.

The product of this desperate toil is contained in a few writings in our literature which have been collected, and will it is hoped, appear in book form. Whatever opinion our profession may entertain regarding his conclusions, they were certainly not the result of armchair musings, but were sweated from him in a struggle with almost unbearable ideas.

Of this work Ferenczi wrote (August 31, 1928), 'Your personal case shows—at least to me—quite clearly the great importance of the problem of menstruation for Psycho-Analysis. It must play a big role during the process of transformation of anal sadistic tendencies into genital ones. I share the opinion of Freud in regard to the value of your findings. … I will improve the next opportunity to talk about your letter with Professor Freud. … I am sure your work will sooner or later find the appreciation it certainly deserves.' But the recognition anticipated was slow and faltering.

Daly had but little clinical experience and though he could extract pieces of later work for use in his own theoretical constructions he did not grasp the general drift of newer formulations, thus he felt rather cut off from the free exchange of ideas in the gat