General Theory of Neuroses: Twenty-two lectures on the Biology, Psycho-analysis, and Psycho-hygiene of Psychosomatic Disorders. By Rudolf Brun. (New York: International University Press, 1951. Pp. 468.)

Professor Brun has long been known as a distinguished scholar in several fields. His studies on the instincts of the ants won him early recognition. He has also made important contributions to neurology and psychiatry. There have been three great influences in his career: August Forel, Monakow, and Freud. In this book he attempts to synthesize his masters' concepts. The result is an impressive work characterized by the thoroughness, sincerity, and lucidity which are the hallmarks of Swiss scholarship.

The material is presented in lecture form. There are twenty-two lectures in all. The author proposes a new clinical classification. The neuroses are a group among the 'primary disorders of the instinctive life' called the hormopathies, which may be organic or functional in origin. the former fall into three groups: the dysglandular, the constitutional endogenous, i.e. the major psychoses, and the organic cerebral. The functional hormopathies are identical with the neuroses which, again, are divided into two groups according to their supposed causation. The first group consists of the vegetative neuroses (to which Freud's actual neurosis belongs), the neurasthenias, and the fright neuroses. They are believed to be due to mechanical or toxic disturbances of the vegetative cerebral centres. The nature of those hypothetical disturbances is still obscure. The second group are the psychoneuroses proper (Freud's transference neuroses), i.e. the hysterias, the phobias, and the obsessional neuroses. They are truly psychogenic. That differentiation of the neuroses is the author's main thesis and he is quite dogmatic about it. He believes that Monakow's 'plexus theory' throws light on the etiology of the first group, which also includes anxiety neurosis. According to Monakow, the functions of the brain can be impaired by mechanical or toxic damage to the hemoencephalic barrier of which the plexus chorioidei are the chief part. It is only fair to point out that