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This collection of papers was made to mark and honour the sixtieth birthday of Milton Senn, who has done so much to bring together paediatrics and child psychiatry. The contributions are carefully arranged in a way that recapitulates the development of Dr Senn's own interests.
Part I, the introductory section, consists of an exhortation by Grover F. Powers of Yale to his undergraduate students of medicine, and a thoughtful essay by Lawrence K. Frank on human development as an emerging scientific discipline. Part II deals with biological aspects of child development, and contains interesting contributions from Greenman on the ‘Visual behaviour of newborn infants’, and Blodgett on ‘Growth retardation in relation to maternal deprivation’. The latter paper records evidence which suggests that suppression of linear growth in a deprived five-year-old boy may be the consequence of an emotionally engendered hyperadrenocorticism. Part III is made up of papers on theoretical and clinical considerations in child development. It contains the only British contribution, a lucid essay by Anna Freud on ‘Regression in mental development’. Also worthy of note are ‘A relationship between transitional objects and preconscious mental processes’, by Alan W. Fraser; ‘The paediatric management of the dying child’, by Solnit and Green; and ‘The adolescent in a suicidal crisis: collaborative care on a paediatric ward’, by Lewis and Solnit. An exhaustive examination of psychosomatic concepts by Dane G. Prugh appropriately concludes Part III. Part IV is concerned with current paediatric practice. The chapter on the early paediatric management of acute school avoidance is of most interest to the psychologically orientated reader. Parts V, VI, and VII deal consecutively with child guidance today, medical education, and education for children, parents, and teachers. The book ends with a useful bibliography of Senn's own publications.
It is inevitable that a volume compiled in this way should show c