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With this well-edited volume not only has a considerable cultural gap been filled, or perhaps even closed, but we are given grounds to hope that, at the very least, its publication will start a new and fruitful relationship between one of the International's oldest societies and its progenitor, the International Psycho-Analytical Association. The inactivity of the Hungarian Society for some decades has been greatly regretted by all psychoanalysts who know the history of the movement. Its foundation in May 1913 was almost contemporaneous with that of the British Society—the Berlin and other Societies following.
Over 20 years ago the Hungarian Psycho-Analytical Society was dissolved for political reasons. This was a great blow not only to its members, but to the International Association as well. The Hungarian Society could pride itself on having had members like Bálint, Ferenczi, Hermann, Hollós and many others whose names are well known.
The present volume makes available researches of psychoanalytically orientated psychiatrists. It has been carefully edited, and the editor merits full praise for the difficult task which he has undertaken. While some of its faults relate to selection (which is uneven in places), the volume is tactful and does not condescendingly tell the Hungarian reader which treatises he ought to have been familiar with in the past. It is, after all, not the fault of the editor that this necessary scientific nutriment has been withheld from the readership. Nor does the editor take it for granted what an enormous task of digestion awaits his reader now that he is presented with this, some of it belated, information. He has to join together the theoretical and practical body of scientific data. Some of the papers appeared very early, and some recently, having a distinctive note. Some are written by Hungarians, while others are not. Some were given at International Congresses, some at other conferences. Some are important chapters taken fr