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This well-known book was first published in 1923 and has recently appeared in the ninth edition, of which this is a translation. It will be welcome to many psychiatrists who have known it only from quotations. It demonstrates the gap between a purely descriptive approach and the various types of dynamic orientations current in the English-speaking countries. The scope of the book is really wider than the title appears to indicate. Professor Schneider has no use for the term neurosis, for semantic and philosophical reasons. His concept of illness is strictly organic. While he denies that there is such a thing as a neurosis he does not deny the existence of neurotics, whom he regards as psychopathic personalities with abnormal reactions to external events or to inner tensions or conflicts. Considering that he has stated his case for more than thirty-five years with great clarity and from positions of great authority, it is indeed remarkable how little research it has stimulated. Professor Schneider ignores psycho-analysis, and this gives his book an unreal and old-world quality. The translation is admirable.