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The three chapters of this book are the probably somewhat amplified Hideyo Noguchi Lectures. They present a scholarly summary of the subject of which they treat presented in an exceedingly interesting and informative way; and one may read here and there suggestions as to
explanations of many of the phenomena which, as we have learned from all such suggestions, are pregnant with possibilities of explanation of phenomena which we see occurring about us today.
The first lecture deals more particularly with that most terrible of all literary productions, Malleus Maleficarum, outlines its various doctrines in all their hideousness and the practices that grew from them.
The second lecture elaborates the exceedingly important principle, namely, that no adequate understanding of any individual contribution such as the Malleus can be had unless the setting from which that contribution issues is also understood. And so here we have a brief exposition of the social situation, particularly of medicine, in the sixteenth century.
The third lecture deals more particularly with the works of Johann Weyer, whom the author regards from many points of view as properly designated as the Founder of Modern Psychiatry.
One is tempted to discuss at some length the suggestions which a valuable historical contribution of this sort stimulates, and the reviewer cannot help but briefly mention two or three of the more important ones. In the first place, it is obvious that the witch, a creation of the mind, served as the objective of a projection mechanism which among other things had a protective and defensive function. This is perhaps as clearly set forth by the outstanding misogyny of the Malleus and the significance of this misogyny and of the defensive mechanism of projection is not hard to understand when one reads this definition of women:
“What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an unescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a