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The main virtue of this booklet is that it compares the neuropsychiatric experiences of World War I and II. As the authors rightly state, the experiences of World War I were too lightly regarded. A good deal of time, effort and mistakes would have been obviated if more attention had been paid to what had actually been learned during World War I. They point to some of the errors in judgment which resulted in faulty recommendations and procedures at the beginning of this war; for instance, the supposition that screening and selection would be completely adequate to handle the psychiatric problems of the Services. This misconception went so far as to lead to the feeling that it would not be necessary to plan for any large number of neuropsychiatric hospital beds. The thesis was at fault in part because one actually had inadequate knowledge as to exactly what made for a good soldier under combat conditions. Preinduction screening, although of great value, certainly was not the answer.
There is a justified criticism of the lack of neuropsychiatric organization in the early days of the war. It was only late in 1943 that Colonel Roy Halloran was appointed to head a Psychiatry Division in the Office of the Surgeon General. The authors' statement, however, that there was no prominent head of psychiatry in the Air Surgeon's Office and that 'only after considerable pressure were several eminent psychiatrists appointed as consultants to various branches of the Services' is a bit of an injustice to the psychiatrist who had been appointed as consultant to the Air Surgeon and attempted to function under difficult circumstances.
The material presented is highly compressed and is, therefore, difficult to review. All the familiar factors commonly cited as etiological, are presented. The authors' own emphasis is on 'previous condition of the personality' as the single most important factor determining whether a soldier will break or not. They recognize that there is a limit t