Preface to Maxim Steiner's The Psychical Disorders of male Potency1

The author of this little monograph, which deals with the pathology and treatment of psychical impotence in males, is one of the small band of physicians who early recognized the importance of psycho-analysis for their special branch of medicine and who have never since ceased to perfect themselves in its theory and technique. We are aware that only a small part of neurotic ailments—which we have now come to know as the outcome of disturbances of the sexual function— are dealt with in neuropathology itself. The greater number of them find a place among the disorders of the particular organ which is the victim of a neurotic disturbance. It is therefore expedient and proper that the treatment of these symptoms or syndromes should also be the business of the specialist, who is alone capable of making a differential diagnosis between a neurotic and an organic illness, who can draw the line, in the case of mixed forms, between their organic and neurotic elements, and who can in general give us information on the way in which the two factors in the disease mutually reinforce each other. But if ‘nervous’ organic diseases are not to fall into neglect as being mere appendages of the material disorders of the same organ—a neglect which, from their frequency and practical importance, they are far from meriting—the specialist, whether he is concerned with the stomach, the heart or the urogenitary system, must, in addition to his general medical knowledge and his specialized attainments, also be able to make use, for his own field of work, of the lines of approach, the discoveries and the techniques of the nerve specialist.