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Following the tragic death of Thomas W. Salmon a fund was subscribed which was to be devoted to a series of lectures on the field of psychiatry to be delivered annually. Dr. Wm. A. White of Washington was chosen to deliver the third series and the present very attractive volume just short of 200 pages contains his three essays; Psychiatry as a Medical Specialty, The Social Significance of Psychiatry, and The General Implications of Psychiatric Thought.
The lectures are popular rather than technical yet lose nothing for the trained psychiatrist thereby since by his apt phrasing Dr. White does not depart from the best levels of scientific thought.
In his Introduction he sketches a picture of the psychiatric horizon as it appeared to him when he entered hospital work. He depicts it as largely custodial, highly negative and mostly dull and uninspired. To those who know of his own career, he himself has been, with a few others, instrumental in making radical changes of this set-up throughout the United States.
Kraepelin was the main source of stimulus of those who began to change things in the latter half of the nineteenth century but this was only the beginning—a beginning of great importance, but not as significant as what has followed—whereby a largely descriptive discipline has been followed by one of a dynamic and interpretative approach, hence the significance of Dr. White's subtitle: “Psychiatry's Contribution to Man's Knowledge of Himself.”
Two movements were outstanding in this period. The psychoanalytic and mental hygiene. The former has greatly blessed psychiatry, Dr. White writes. “Its problems have been more clearly defined, they are more definitely understood, their meanings and values have become significant and the patient in each instance is receiving more intelligent consideration and in the end I have no doubt that the net result will be a definite gain in the therapeutic results.” Nowhere can be found a more balanced and just appraisal of what the psychoa