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This work of Dr. Campbell's is constituted of the Salmon Memorial Lectures in psychiatry. They were the second of this series and were delivered in the spring of 1934. The ground covered by the lectures is extensive. The first lecture undertakes a broad view of the entire field of psychiatry as it has come to exist at this time, particularly emphasizing the problems which have been raised by this medical specialty not only in its own domain but in the field of the other natural, particularly biological, sciences. The second lecture consists essentially in a classification of the schizophrenic psychoses which has resulted from an extensive survey of their symptomatology. It is descriptive rather than interpretative. The main criticism of the lectures might be concentrated on this chapter. The many brief histories as they are recorded are of little value, they are so condensed and lack almost entirely in interpretative translation. The groups might have been designated as they are in italics and the histories as given left out with very little loss, at least to the psychiatric reader. The third chapter is more given to interpretations, and more particularly to showing that the schizophrenic patient is, after all, dealing with material at the human level, is akin to all the rest of us but, to be sure, out of balance and equilibrium.
The lectures are written in a free-flowing, easy style that makes them, so to speak, read themselves, and should be helpful to the intelligent reader in broadening his concept of the significance of mental disorders.
White