The nature of the ego, which has, above all else, the task of self-preservation, becomes a matter of more than psychiatric interest when chronic illness seriously endangers life or function. In order to establish the relationship between personality factors and pulmonary tuberculosis on the basis of modern clinical research, the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis (England) engaged Dr. Eric Wittkower, a psychiatrist reputed for his psychosomatic contributions, to conduct a person-by-person study. The results of this scientific endeavor are published, with an introduction by Dr. John Rickman, in this readable little book which covers three years of painstaking psychiatric research on seven hundred eighty-five patients.

The book contains three chapters, deliberately phrased in colloquial style. The first is a documentation of patients' emotional reactions to the symptoms, the diagnosis, and the illness; the second explores various individual factors determining altered behavior; and the third assesses the relevance of emotional factors