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This is one of the more recent volumes in this rather well known series of annual reports. It is directed more to the pediatrician and neurologist than to the psychiatrist.
Only eight out of twenty-two papers are in the area of psychiatry. Nonetheless these papers and the accompanying discussions are interesting and highly enlightening since they deal primarily with juvenile schizophrenia.
The book is divided into six main sections covering recent research in the fields of infections of the C.N.S., developmental and traumatic aspects, functional and degenerative problems, roentgenographic aspects and (last but not least) the final two parts consisting of the psychiatric aspects (as mentioned above) in eight papers. It is this last section that is of prime interest to this reader. The symposium on juvenile schizophrenia (three papers of the eight in the psychiatric section) consists of papers read by Leo Kanner, Lauretta Bender, and Hirschberg and Bryant. These presentations are followed by some very pertinent discussions from the floor. There seems to be a slowly gathering impetus to accept more of Bender's views as to the etiological basis of this disease in a lag in maturation with its subsequent secondary psychological and emotional superstructure. It is obvious that there are few centers devoting themselves to a concentrated study of childhood psychoses, and that our greatest insights have come from isolated work by the child analysts. This has perhaps prejudiced the case and weighted the evidence on the non-organic side of the scale in most of the discussions of the problem. On the whole, the collection and publication of these proceedings have maintained the high level set in previous volumes of earlier years.