Faris, Robert E. L., and Dunham, H. Warren. Mental Disorders in Urban Areas. An Ecological Study of Schizophrenia and other Psychoses.  The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1939.  xxiv+264 pp.

This superlatively brilliant book bids fair to set a new standard for research—and the presentation of results—in the field of sociological-psychiatric correlations. It is not a book to be reviewed, but one to be read and re-read. For the first time perhaps a professional insight into sociological factors has been drawn upon to investigate ecological factors in psychiatry. Not one possible sociological lead has been omitted or slighted. Even in this day and age of torrential output in this field the authors must be commended for their sound grounding in psychiatry. A bulky material has been subjected to intelligent critical evaluations, maps, tables, statistics, etc. abound, and the index and bibliography is ably presented. The style is scholarly and yet clear. The conclusions seem fully justified … if anything they are too restrained. As the work stands it is a credit to the scholarship and intelligence of the authors, and represents a new triumph for the Burgess-Park type of urban sociology.

The most interesting correlation between social surroundings and types of psychoses is the distribution of schizophrenia, the majority of cases coming from disorganized areas. Old-Age psychoses are connected with tenancy-areas, general paralysis with vice-areas, alcoholic addiction and drug-addition is represented mainly by transition-areas while—a challenge to sociologists—the manic-depressive psychoses seem to be