Psychological Medicine
- Author:
Desmond Curran,
M.B., F.R.C.P., D.P.M., and the late Eric Guttmann, M.D., M.R.C.P. Third Edition. E. & S. Livingstone Ltd, Edinburgh. 12s. 6d.
The third edition of this textbook for students and newly qualified Practitioners is the first to be published since the untimely death of Dr Eric Guttmann, one of its original authors. Largely as a result of this apparently, there are few major alterations in this edition, though the sections on Mental Deficiency, Hysteria and Schizophrenia have all been added to and brought more in line with recent advances. At the same time, there are certain obvious omissions which are striking and which could well have been modified in the present new edition. In particular it is surprising to find that, in the chapter on the legal aspects of insanity, there is no mention of the modifications to the law made by the National Health Service Act of 1946. In a book published seven months after the coming into force of this Act, it is strange to read references to Relieving Officers and to rate-aided patients. The appendix on psychiatry associated with War conditions is still retained, and whilst few would disagree with Dr Curran’s suggestion that the present state of world affairs justifies its retention, this section still suffers from its former shortcomings. Much of it is made up of repetitions of material already contained, and fully described, in the earlier parts of the book. This section is still largely devoted to the special aspects of naval psychiatry, and it fails to stress many of the valuable lessons and experiences which psychiatry gained from war conditions. Its emphasis is particularly on clinical material and there is insufficient discussion of those important aspects of social psychiatry which were the principal psychiatric advances of the war period.
For the most part, this book gives a clear and very readable description of the major psychiatric illnesses, but its balance is not always good and the emphasis at all stages is more on the psychoses than on the psychoneuroses. The illustrations are extremely well reproduced, but they are not always wisely selected, whilst one of them at least might have appeared without comment in a text book published 50 years ago.
This book is essentially meant for the student or practitioner who has little or no previous experience of psychiatry and, whilst it is by no means the ideal textbook for this purpose, it can justifiably be included amongst the better books in this field. Its bibliography is an excellent one and since it is a book which may well stimulate further reading, this is a most valuable point in its favour. T.A.R.
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