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CONTROL OF BRUCELLOSIS
459
the age of 4 years, separation from home was the principal
brucellosis in
swine will interest the agricultural and public-health authorities in countries where Br. suis infections are widespread. There are many distinguished names on this international panel of experts, and the report shows that they mean to get on with the job.
anxiety ; whereas in children aged 6-12 fear of anesthesia was prominent. The child’s reaction corresponded to the soundness of his personality structure. cause of
Furthermore, of 28 who adjusted themselves well to
1 had an unsatisfactory relationparents ; whereas of 13 who did not adjust themselves, 10 had an unsatisfactory relationship. It was concluded that in the well-adjusted child tonsillectomy is least likely to produce psychic trauma between the ages of 5 and 10 years, and operation should be postponed if the child has suffered any recent traumatic experience. To overcome apprehension the child should be told in advance something of what to expect in hospital; this information should be given by some trusted person, usually the mother. With a 24-hour waiting-period in hospital before operation, most children
hospital conditions, only
CRITICS OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
ship with his
over
4 years of age became somewhat
Freud’s teaching has now been widely, if thinly, spread over life in the United States, and perhaps the missionary spirit of some of its transatlantic exponents is the cause of some recent critical reactions by eminent thinkers on the Continent, where Freud came into fashion many years earlier. Gruhle1 attacks the philosophical validity of psycho-
analytic interpretations. " Freud says of the dream that it protects sleep. This is Freud’s interpretation of its objective purpose : the dreamer knows nothing of it. Freud refers to his own observation ; but wrongly for no observation can support his thesis. Freud also says the dream is wish-fulfilment, an interpretation of subjective purpose, again unknown to the dreamer. Freud tells him : You don’t know it, but I know. This Freud calls observation; he calls observation his own experience of
acclimatised ; but
younger children, who suffer more from not benefitfrom such a period.
separation,
do
CONTROL OF BRUCELLOSIS EARLY in 1950 the World Health and Food and Agriculture Organisations (W.H.O. and F.A.O.) were asked by their member-countries to produce a plan for combating brucellosis. Their immediate response was to select a panel of experts on the disease and designate 12 centres in various countries which would stimulate research and training in field and laboratory methods. The report1 of the panel’s first meeting in Washington makes encouraging reading because it squares up to a world-wide problem. In the United States, halving the number of cattle infected with brucella has saved 50 million dollars annually, and eradication of the disease from Norway has cost less than a year’s toll among farm animals. Since brucellosis does not pass from man to man, the human infection can best be controlled by eradicating the disease from animals ; but for this accurate diagnosis and reporting are essential. The panel recommends that all governments should make brucellosis, whether in man or in animals, a reportable disease and it proposes a central pool of information on which all countries may draw. With probably at least 20% of British cows infected, we have a stake in this campaign ; and it deserves the widest support. As an earnest of its practical intentions the panel includes in its report an excellent account of current knowledge of the disease, though it says little on the clinical side. Brucellosis in this country means infection with Brucella abortusbut Br. melitensis has been isolated from cow’s milk in some areas and we cannot dismiss the possibility that this organism may become more widespread. The report deals with modes of transmission to man, including entry through the mucous membranes and the conjunctiva and airborne spread. Modern laboratory methods of diagnosis are described, as are the newer methods of treatment, though none of these have yet proved really satisfactory. The main burden of the report bears, as it should, on brucellosis in farm animals, on the methods of diagnosing such infections, and on the production and control of strain-19 vaccine which is widely used in cattle. The panel is well aware of the variations in the method and in the antigens now used for agglutination tests and in the techniques for culturing the organism. It offers to distribute stock cultures and sera, and these should help to improve laboratory standards of diagnosis. It also describes the new ring or A.R.B. test in which a stained antigen is added to whole milk and, if positive, the antigen collects on the fat globules to give a coloured cream line. This is a fairly sensitive test and should simplify field tests on infected herds. The detailed instructions for the control of 1. Joint F.A.O./W.H.O. Expert Panel on Brucellosis. the first session. Washington, November, 1950.
Report of
evidence."
Gruhle
in psycho-analytic teaching only the enchantof magic, poetry, and myths, which places it outside science and scientific criticism. He warns us against drawing any conclusion from therapeutic results which may be equally achieved- by all kinds of procedures and creeds, though the rational appeal in the cloak of science is probably the most effective mode of faithhealing today. He insists that Jung, for instance, persuades his patient that his dream images are of deep significance and reveal eternal truths. When the patient has been converted to this belief, he thinks he has access to deep knowledge and secret meanings, and finds peace in this, his own religion. According to Gruhle, one has to see clearly the dividing line between the adept, who is stirred and may be deeply moved, and the sober scientist who can discover only misguided sees
ing play
_
imagination. Karl Jaspers,
now professor of philosophy in Basle, time a psychiatrist. His criticism2 is distinguished by its moral undertone. He cannot find any criterion of true or false in the boundless interpretations, distortions, oppositions, and over-interpretations oj everything, used by psycho-analysts ; there is no standard of discernibility in the infinite flux of meanings they may find. To consider illness as guilt, as Freud sometimes does, and to extend this view more or less to all diseases is, in Jasper’s opinion, a wholly unmedical attitude. It leads to an inhuman philosophy contrary to the physician’s ethics. Jaspers sees in some analytical writings a destructive fanatical tendency to use therapeutic methods in order to gain power over human souls. His strongest protest, however, is directed against the growing orthodoxy and intolerance of analytical societies A successful teaching analysis as the and schools. condition of full membership and of registration as an analyst becomes more and more a sacrifice of personal freedom in thinking, comparable with the monastic exercises of the Jesuits, or the practices of the Yogi. Jaspers has great doubts whether it is compatible with the freedom of a university in Western civilisation that the psycho-analytical institute of the university should ask its students to undergo a teaching analysis which is only declared successful if the candidate accepts the faith. His principal contention is similar to Gruhle’s -that psycho-analysis, using pseudoscientific terms, claims to solve problems in human existence that science cannot solve without weakening its foundations and abandoning part of its freedom.
was
at
1. 2.
one
Gruhle, H. W. Studium Generate, 1950, 3, 369. Nervenarzt, 1950, 21, 465.
Jaspers, K.
the age of 4 years, separation from home was the principal
brucellosis in
swine will interest the agricultural and public-health authorities in countries where Br. suis infections are widespread. There are many distinguished names on this international panel of experts, and the report shows that they mean to get on with the job.
anxiety ; whereas in children aged 6-12 fear of anesthesia was prominent. The child’s reaction corresponded to the soundness of his personality structure. cause of
Furthermore, of 28 who adjusted themselves well to
1 had an unsatisfactory relationparents ; whereas of 13 who did not adjust themselves, 10 had an unsatisfactory relationship. It was concluded that in the well-adjusted child tonsillectomy is least likely to produce psychic trauma between the ages of 5 and 10 years, and operation should be postponed if the child has suffered any recent traumatic experience. To overcome apprehension the child should be told in advance something of what to expect in hospital; this information should be given by some trusted person, usually the mother. With a 24-hour waiting-period in hospital before operation, most children
hospital conditions, only
CRITICS OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
ship with his
over
4 years of age became somewhat
Freud’s teaching has now been widely, if thinly, spread over life in the United States, and perhaps the missionary spirit of some of its transatlantic exponents is the cause of some recent critical reactions by eminent thinkers on the Continent, where Freud came into fashion many years earlier. Gruhle1 attacks the philosophical validity of psycho-
analytic interpretations. " Freud says of the dream that it protects sleep. This is Freud’s interpretation of its objective purpose : the dreamer knows nothing of it. Freud refers to his own observation ; but wrongly for no observation can support his thesis. Freud also says the dream is wish-fulfilment, an interpretation of subjective purpose, again unknown to the dreamer. Freud tells him : You don’t know it, but I know. This Freud calls observation; he calls observation his own experience of
acclimatised ; but
younger children, who suffer more from not benefitfrom such a period.
separation,
do
CONTROL OF BRUCELLOSIS EARLY in 1950 the World Health and Food and Agriculture Organisations (W.H.O. and F.A.O.) were asked by their member-countries to produce a plan for combating brucellosis. Their immediate response was to select a panel of experts on the disease and designate 12 centres in various countries which would stimulate research and training in field and laboratory methods. The report1 of the panel’s first meeting in Washington makes encouraging reading because it squares up to a world-wide problem. In the United States, halving the number of cattle infected with brucella has saved 50 million dollars annually, and eradication of the disease from Norway has cost less than a year’s toll among farm animals. Since brucellosis does not pass from man to man, the human infection can best be controlled by eradicating the disease from animals ; but for this accurate diagnosis and reporting are essential. The panel recommends that all governments should make brucellosis, whether in man or in animals, a reportable disease and it proposes a central pool of information on which all countries may draw. With probably at least 20% of British cows infected, we have a stake in this campaign ; and it deserves the widest support. As an earnest of its practical intentions the panel includes in its report an excellent account of current knowledge of the disease, though it says little on the clinical side. Brucellosis in this country means infection with Brucella abortusbut Br. melitensis has been isolated from cow’s milk in some areas and we cannot dismiss the possibility that this organism may become more widespread. The report deals with modes of transmission to man, including entry through the mucous membranes and the conjunctiva and airborne spread. Modern laboratory methods of diagnosis are described, as are the newer methods of treatment, though none of these have yet proved really satisfactory. The main burden of the report bears, as it should, on brucellosis in farm animals, on the methods of diagnosing such infections, and on the production and control of strain-19 vaccine which is widely used in cattle. The panel is well aware of the variations in the method and in the antigens now used for agglutination tests and in the techniques for culturing the organism. It offers to distribute stock cultures and sera, and these should help to improve laboratory standards of diagnosis. It also describes the new ring or A.R.B. test in which a stained antigen is added to whole milk and, if positive, the antigen collects on the fat globules to give a coloured cream line. This is a fairly sensitive test and should simplify field tests on infected herds. The detailed instructions for the control of 1. Joint F.A.O./W.H.O. Expert Panel on Brucellosis. the first session. Washington, November, 1950.
Report of
evidence."
Gruhle
in psycho-analytic teaching only the enchantof magic, poetry, and myths, which places it outside science and scientific criticism. He warns us against drawing any conclusion from therapeutic results which may be equally achieved- by all kinds of procedures and creeds, though the rational appeal in the cloak of science is probably the most effective mode of faithhealing today. He insists that Jung, for instance, persuades his patient that his dream images are of deep significance and reveal eternal truths. When the patient has been converted to this belief, he thinks he has access to deep knowledge and secret meanings, and finds peace in this, his own religion. According to Gruhle, one has to see clearly the dividing line between the adept, who is stirred and may be deeply moved, and the sober scientist who can discover only misguided sees
ing play
_
imagination. Karl Jaspers,
now professor of philosophy in Basle, time a psychiatrist. His criticism2 is distinguished by its moral undertone. He cannot find any criterion of true or false in the boundless interpretations, distortions, oppositions, and over-interpretations oj everything, used by psycho-analysts ; there is no standard of discernibility in the infinite flux of meanings they may find. To consider illness as guilt, as Freud sometimes does, and to extend this view more or less to all diseases is, in Jasper’s opinion, a wholly unmedical attitude. It leads to an inhuman philosophy contrary to the physician’s ethics. Jaspers sees in some analytical writings a destructive fanatical tendency to use therapeutic methods in order to gain power over human souls. His strongest protest, however, is directed against the growing orthodoxy and intolerance of analytical societies A successful teaching analysis as the and schools. condition of full membership and of registration as an analyst becomes more and more a sacrifice of personal freedom in thinking, comparable with the monastic exercises of the Jesuits, or the practices of the Yogi. Jaspers has great doubts whether it is compatible with the freedom of a university in Western civilisation that the psycho-analytical institute of the university should ask its students to undergo a teaching analysis which is only declared successful if the candidate accepts the faith. His principal contention is similar to Gruhle’s -that psycho-analysis, using pseudoscientific terms, claims to solve problems in human existence that science cannot solve without weakening its foundations and abandoning part of its freedom.
was
at
1. 2.
one
Gruhle, H. W. Studium Generate, 1950, 3, 369. Nervenarzt, 1950, 21, 465.
Jaspers, K.