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The eighteenth volume of the New York Academy of Medicine Lectures to the Laity maintains the high tradition of its predecessors in gathering five distinguished authorities to discuss the subject of medicine in a changing society. This volume displays a strong
psychosocial emphasis and, significantly, conveys a tone of disquietude in surveying current trends.
Franz Alexander keynotes the series in a broadly reflective essay depicting the present social tendency toward security as opposed to adventurousness, and warns that our civilization will stagnate unless the surplus energy liberated by technology is used creatively rather than for destruction. Overconcern with security fosters submission to authority and curtails creativity.
This latter aspect is further elaborated at the level of the family unit by John A. Rose in a most timely and forthright article, which presents the unhappy image of parents intimidated by overzealous professionals whose goals disregard specific family values. Anxiety undermines the parents' morale until they are willing to relinquish their child-rearing function to outside agencies, even books. Rose stresses the need for greater understanding and effort in restoring the confidence of parents.
Next, William Malamud contributes an extremely lucid survey of the difficult and complex subject of organic factors in personality, followed by W. Horsley Gantt's summary of thirty years' research in the extension of Pavlovian reflexology. The latter may prove quite formidable for the 'intelligent layman' but highly valuable for fellow physicians. The psychoanalyst, while disagreeing with Horsley Gantt's 'conditional reflex' approach to nervous breakdown and preventive psychiatry, will nevertheless have great interest in the thinking of a distinguished investigator in animal psychology.
Finally, Iago Galdston turns from an admirable job of editing to appear as contributor of a scholarly article—virtually a thumbnail history of medicine—which compa