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This monograph was prepared for the Council on Professional Practice of the American Hospital Association. It presents a study of 'the history, present status, principles, treatment procedures, and other aspects of the management of the psychiatric patient in the general hospital'. The material is very well organized. There is no highly technical psychiatric jargon to baffle the hospital administrator to whom the book is particularly directed.
Dr. Ebaugh defines very clearly the type of psychiatric problem with which one must cope on the wards of general hospitals. He points out the great emphasis on organic disease which exists with the possible disregard of the total picture of the illness. A plea is made for the inclusion of psychiatry as a fundamental of general medical practice as well as for its ranking as a major clinical division of medicine. Statistical evidence is presented both for the frequency with which psychiatric problems occur in any general practice and for the inadequate facilities existent for the care, study and treatment of such problems in the great majority of general hospitals. 'Since cases that are wholly or partially psychiatric probably outnumber all others combined, the necessity for a psychiatric ward is obvious.' The Trend of Psychiatric Service in General Hospitals is given a chapter with discussion of the type of service that has been developed in the few hospitals where it is now available. It is estimated that in meeting the needs 'every general hospital of 150 or more beds, could support a psychiatric ward of at least fifteen beds'.
The author summarizes the advantages of such a service to the hospital, the community, the patient, the medical profession and to psychiatry; these would include better levels of medical practice, better community relationships, educational and economic gains