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Doctor Wertham's book is extremely interesting even though it has obviously been written primarily for the lay public. As such it presents little information new to psychiatry, but should be an excellent seller. The author is undoubtedly well-read as shown by numerous quotations aptly employed and is naturally well-trained and has had much experience. He begins with a discussion of the relationship of psychiatrists to cases of homicide. A brief history mentions the usual cases, Hadfield, McNaughton, etc., and then proceeds to follow a middle-of-the-road argument, rightly emphasizing the importance of psychiatrists in criminology and yet not yielding to the temptation to “turn most or all of the offenders over to psychiatry.”
He next proceeds in discussing a case of murder and attempted suicide to indicate some of the basic material which so seldom turns up in court and which accounts for the activities of this particular murderess. Such material is of interest but the study is too scant for professional study. This is always the problem in psychiatric writing. The book is too “superficial” to the expert or too deep for the public. Obviously in this book only a small amount of the material which was undoubtedly available to