(Contribution to the Psychology of “System-Constructions”)

THE sister of a young artist called on me one day and told me that her brother A., a very talented man, had been behaving for some time in a very peculiar manner. He had read a doctor's treatise on the serum treatment of tuberculosis,2 since when he had been the whole time concerned only about himself, had got his urine and sputum examined for abnormal constituents, and, although there were none present, had undergone the serum treatment with the doctor in question. It was soon plain that it was not a question of a simple hypochondriac moodiness with him. Not only the treatise, but also