THE VETERINARY BULLETIN.

929 observed many years ago by Prof. Robert Muir in one of the things in which America has progressed Glasgow, the secondaries in the lungs showed only beyond us. In its special hospital number for March spindle cells as far as they were examined. Some the Journal of the American 3[medical Association people may argue that, because the secondaries in publishes an analysis of hospital services in the United some of these cases did not show an exactly typical States ; the figures show the astonishing result that picture, the tumours in question were not genuine the hospitals classed as nervous " and " mental " far osteoclastoma. This seems to be hardly a more outnumber, numerically and in the number of their reasonable position than to say that a tumour cannot beds, hospitals of any other class except general. New be an osteoclastoma if it is malignant. Osteoclas- York State alone has 59 mental hospitals ; in the whole tomas will show a uniform and typical microscopicalI of the States there are 4302 general hospitals serving picture only so long as they are benign ; with the an average of 240,000 odd patients, and 561 nervous onset of malignancy we should expect greater or and mental hospitals serving an average of 415,000 less departure from the customary structure and patients. The next in the list are the tuberculosis should not be surprised if some cases, such as hospitals, which number 515 and serve 56,000 patients. Dr. Orr’s, show signs of kinship with osteogenic These figures prove conclusively that the American sarcomata. Clinically at any rate it seems certain people are far more alive to the necessity for mental that purely local treatment cannot be regarded as hygiene than we are. The article quoted indicates a demand for accommodation in mental hospitals altogether safe. comparable to our own, for 94-8 per cent. of the available beds are occupied, as against 64-7 per cent. of the THE VETERINARY BULLETIN. beds in general hospitals. Government and nonTHE Imperial Agricultural Research Conference of Government hospitals have grown up together in 1927 recommended the publication of a veterinary States. The Americans are making increasing many bulletin by the Imperial Bureau of Animal Health, use of their mental hospitals for teaching purposes ; a task previously undertaken by the Bureau of 31 out of 561 are affiliated with medical schools, Hygiene and Tropical Diseases. The Tropical and 63 offer 302 approved residencies in psychiatry. Veterinary Bulletin accordingly was discontinued with The report of our Board of Control for 1929 states that the issue of Dec., 1930, and in its place a new journal at the beginning of 1930 the number of persons under the title of the Veterinary Bulletin is to appear under care for notified mental disease in England and quarterly, the first issue of which is in our hands. Wales was 142,387; the proportion of persons under It will deal with all aspects of animal health in so treatment to the population is therefore smaller in far as they relate to original research and administhe United States than in England in the proportion trative control, but will not deal with clinical material of about 9 to 10, reckoning the population of the from the point of view of the practitioner. The States as and that of England and ground covered will be wider than that of the Wales as 130,000,000 40,000,000. These rates illustrate the bulletin whose place it has taken, for the animal crowded state of our mental hospitals which is condiseases of temperate climates will receive full deplored by the superintendents. They claim consideration, as well as such cognate matters as stantly that they cannot do their preventive and early mineral and plant poisoning in animals. This first mental treatment properly unless they have much number contains 96 pages admirably arranged and more accommodation. printed but for the fact that the line is more than 5 inches long and would certainly not have passed PHYSIQUE AND FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS. the censor of the Fatigue Board. The German THE existence of physical abnormalities in mentally titles are, with a few trifling exceptions, correctly defective people is familiar even to the layman, and rendered. The bulletin consists of a series of 168 has much been written about so-called stigmata of and 14 readable abstracts reviews classified under "

____

____

ideas on this subject unscientific because the study of physical constitution was undeveloped. Recent work, how-

degeneration. Many early

headings, the longest section being diseases

caused by followed by protozoan and fungi, metazoan parasites, and filtrable viruses. A useful section summarises the many official reports which the veterinarian should know about. The editor of the bulletin is Mr. W. A. Pool, M.R.C.V.8., deputy director of the Bureau. The bulletin will be issued on the first day of April, July, October, and December, to subscribers at 1for the volume or 7s. 6d. for a bacteria

were

and

copy. Application to the Imperial Bureau of Animal Health Veterinary Laboratory, Weybridge,

single

Surrey.

____

MENTAL HOSPITALS IN AMERICA. WITH the passing of the Mental Treatment Act, " 1930, all asylums " automatically became potential centres for the dissemination of mental hygiene and, no doubt, they will before long become mental hospitals in the truest sense of the word. The speed of their development along these lines must, however, depend upon the education of public opinion. Apart from these statutory institutions the hospitals which have been specially established for the early treatment of nervous and mental disorder and which enjoy the confidence of that large proportion of the population which still dreads the " taint " of " insanity " can be counted on the fingers of one hand. This is

I

ever-especially the researches of Kretschmer and his pupils-has rendered possible a more accurate and refined investigation. Dr. Eric Strauss, in a papei on the Psychobiological Constitution of the Weak-minded,l makes a wellbalanced and stimulating contribution to a subject of importance not only to the doctor but also to the eugenist and the sociologist. His material consisted of 110 male defectives who superficially presented an appearance of physical normality. He thus excluded from consideration all the grosser types of psychophysical deficiency such as cretins and mongols, syphilitics and epileptics. He sought first to discover whether these 110 defectives could be grouped according to Kretschmer’s classification of physical constitution in the three primary categories of leptosomatic, pyknic, and athletic. None exhibited the typical characteristics in an uncontaminated form and 11 were so dysplastic that they could not be classified at all. The remainder, though recognisable as belonging to one or other of Kretschmer’s groups, exhibited various physical abnormalities of which genital dysplasias were the most frequent and 1

Jour. Ment. Sci., 1930, lxxv.