Psychoanalysis

PSYCHOANALYSIS) in the conception of mental conflict resulting from the active forgetting or repression of unpleasant experiences is undoubted, but to refer them mainly to sexual causes was shown by war experience to be too narrow a view, and the treatment by psychoanalysis and interpretation of dreams, and the patient's "associations" aroused much opposition. On the other hand cura tive measures on psycho-therapeutic lines, such as sympathetic analysis, re-education and occupational therapy, met with success and approval. (See PSYCHIATRY, PSYCHOSIS, PSYCHOTHERAPY.) Orthopaedic Surgery (q.v.) also made great advances as the result of the numerous cases of injury during the war, and remedial gymnastics and exercises have thus been of great use in furthering recovery in such cases.

Preventive Medicine

prolongation of life and diminution of infant mortality in Great Britain have both im proved by about 50% in the last half century, and in the United States of America the average age at death has advanced from 4o in 1855 to 58 years at the present time. This has coincided with improved conditions of hygiene and environment, and has stimu lated active measures in the prevention of disease—the ideal of medicine. The establishment in 1919 of the Ministry of Health in Great Britain was a far-seeing advance for the improvement of the national health and the prevention of disease (see THERA PEUTICS). In America regular periodic examination of healthy, or supposedly healthy, persons has been begun, and the statistical experience of life-assurance companies has already proved that this practice exerts a beneficial effect on the mortality of those adopting this course. The prevention of disease has been greatly assisted by the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, which has undertaken a world-wide campaign with this object on very broad lines through its International Health Board, its Division of Medi cal Education and its China Medical Board. In 1913 the Rocke feller Sanitary Commission, founded in 1909 for the eradication of hookworm disease (q.v.), was incorporated as the International Health Commission (called the International Health Board after 1916) of the then recently established Rockefeller Foundation, and since then has carried out campaigns against yellow fever (q.v.)

in South America, which have practically exterminated it and inci dentally led to Noguchi's discovery of the cause (Leptospira icter oides) of the disease, against malaria (q.v.) and tuberculosis (q.v.) (see also THERAPEUTICS). In connection with the National Insurance Act 0910 the Medical Research Committee (now Council) was created, and research workers have been financed and an enormous impetus given to the advancement of medicine and so to the diminution of disease.

The special conditions bearing on health in factories and indus tries, particularly the dangerous trades, have attracted specialised attention, particularly in America, where a School of Industrial Medicine has been instituted in connection with Harvard Uni versity.

Insanity.—The prevention of insanity by early treatment in psychiatric clinics, usually attached to general hospitals and often part of the neurological department, has been an important step in the prevention of mental disorder (see PSYCHIATRY). It is con nected with the social service and after-care movements. In 1908 the American Council of Mental Hygiene was founded, in 1918 a similar council was started in Canada, in 192o the French League of Mental Hygiene was inaugurated and in 1922 the British Na tional Council for Mental Hygiene was established. Evidence of the awakening interest in health of the public at large since the war is also shown by the Society for the Prevention of Venereal Disease, the League of Health and the British Empire Cancer Campaign.

Comparative Medicine.

The increase of experimental re search has been followed by the study of comparative medicine and pathology, whereby human and veterinary medicine may mutually help and benefit each other; an institute for research in the pathology of animal diseases and a professorship were estab lished at Cambridge in 1923, and the study of experimental epi demics has been undertaken in laboratories at the Rockefeller Institute, New York, and at Manchester.