Advances in Psychosomatic Medicine, Volume 6: Duodenal Ulcer: Edited by H. Weiner. Basel: S. Karger, 1971. 200 pp.

'Ulcer in man is probably the classic example of a psychosomatic disease.' This is the opening sentence of a remarkable volume of essays organized by Herbert Weiner, the Editor-in-Chief of the

journal, Psychosomatic Medicine. Two chapters are long, distinguished, and undoubtedly definitive: Induced Gastric Lesions in Animals by Robert Ader and Observations on Man by Joel Yager and Weiner. Additional chapters by D. State, Manfred Pflanz, Muller-Wieland, and F. W. Ossenberg and John C. Nemiah, although shorter and perhaps less distinctive, are of an excellent quality. Pflanz's contribution parallels a recent challenging review by Susser1 and takes a different point of view. Pflanz's bibliography (two hundred twenty-nine references) is likely to be the superior one. Short discussion sections included in the book serve the purpose of review and criticism for longer chapters.

John Mason chooses to use his space for a provocative discussion of psychosomatic research. George Engel and Howard Spiro are gently critical in a chapter on medical and psychiatric management. A 'summarizing review' by Franz Reichsman (pp. 195-200) serves to balance apparently critical comments made elsewhere. In a charming, brilliant account he points out the pioneering contributions of Franz Alexander and Arthur Mirsky and their effect on subsequent developments in psychosomatic research and theory.

Readers of this journal and/or anyone contemplating writing about duodenal ulcer from a psychoanalytic, psychiatric, or psychophysiologic view are advised to focus their attention on the heart of the book: Chapter Two—Observations in Man with Remarks on Pathogenesis by Yager and Weiner. Fifty-eight pages in length, it is, in an excellent, dense way, 'compact'. An enormous and diverse literature (two hundred forty-four references) is covered with erudition and precision.