Medicine: Psychiatrists in Washington

Already half the hospital patients of the nation are in insane asylums or their equivalents. Psychiatrists are convinced that within a few years one out of twenty of the inhabitants of the U. S. will be mentally incompetent or emotionally unstable. To cope with that dreary future all sorts of organizations exist such as National Committee for Mental Hygiene, Special Schools Association (to train “retarded” children). Friedsam Foundation (to study children especially), American Neurological Association (which meets in Montreal next week), American Psychiatric Association.

They all have researches under way to investigate the mechanics of mental and nervous derangement, none more so than the psychiatrists who met in Washington last week. Under the presidency of Manhattan’s suave Professor Clarence Orion Cheney, whose 24 years’ dealing with madmen leaves him nonetheless hopeful for humanity, the psychiatrists considered scores of situations like the following:

Perfumes v. Nightmares. Victims of nightmares are cured by Dr. Valentine Ujhely of Manhattan as follows: Victim wraps his head in thick gauze, stretches out on couch. Phonograph plays soft symphonic music. Dr. Ujhely squirts two-three drops of jasmine or tuberose perfume on the masked face every minute for almost an hour. By & by the patient finds himself daydreaming. A gong softly gongs —signal for the patient to daydream about something else. Gong, gong, gong—reveries change. GONG—the patient deliberately muses about his nightmare, tells it to do its worst, “you’re only a dream.”

Hitler Purge. A timid 9-year-old Manhattan boy translated his unconscious fear & hatred of his domineering father, a Jewish bank president, into a puerile fear & hatred of Adolf Hitler. Dr. John Levy of Manhattan gave the boy toy soldiers, boats and wooden figures and told him to imagine himself the Protector of the Jews. The boy organized a mimic expedition which captured and executed “Adolf Hitler.” That made the boy believe himself bold & powerful, purged him of his fear & hatred of his father.

Deadly Emotions. Compared to doctors and others who realize how destructive diseases can be, very few insane people die of diseases like angina pectoris, in which strong emotions play a part. Reason: the intelligent person understands and worries about his condition, and it gets worse; the madman has no such worries. To doctors, Dr. Donald Gregg of Wellesley, Mass. gave this advice: “Let us lessen our emotional load by avoiding excess of emotional stimuli, by slackening our pace, or bearing it intermittently; by avoiding excessive specialization thereby lessening our dependence on others, and by developing our knowledge of facts and wisdom in applying these facts, and by developing a philosophy and a faith to take the place of that which our increased but still partial knowledge has shaken or destroyed.”

Fanatics. Eighteen disciples of Major Divine, Negro religious cultist whom disciples call “God,” could not cease their ecstasy after his New York City “Garden of Eating” sessions. Yelping “It’s wonderful,” they hippety-hopped out of doors where police arrested them. When Psychiatrists Lauretta Bender & Zuleika Yarrel examined the prisoners, they found that 16 were mad. Considered possibly sane was a woman who refused to accept a widow’s pension because “God will provide.”

Madmen Virtuous. “The relative scarcity of wholehearted rascals and hearty sinners” among the insane impressed Dr. John Clare Whitehorn of Waverley, Mass.

Mothers of Drunkards may often be to blame for their sons’ habits, Dr. James Hardin Wall of White Plains, N. Y. concluded after finding that a goodly number of drunks in his charge had been pampered, spoiled, overprotected in childhood. As adults “they loved to talk, were fond of singing and were inveterate users of tobacco, indicating rather strong oral cravings and demands for satisfaction.” They enjoyed male drinking companions. They were only 18 years on the average when they started drinking, drank up to a quart a day. They had “a craving for the blissful state of infantile omnipotence which drinking induced.” Treatment: physical rest, increased nutrition, occupational therapy to engage the patient’s interest, pleasant social life, discovery of the cause of emotional instability.

Less Brain, Better Sense. A Louisville woman, aged 35, had a tumor cut out of that part of her brain with which she did her thinking. To the astonishment of Louisville’s Dr. Roy Glenwood Spurting who operated and Dr. S. Spafford Ackerly who managed the case thereafter, the woman exhibited better sense after the operation than ever before—her intelligence tests prove her an average U. S. adult. Her memory for recent events is excellent, for remote events remarkable. She now does more work, with less fatigue, worries less, has a better temper. She no longer fidgets. She makes decisions with no hesitation, walks directly to a destination without window-shopping or other procrastination. She is pious, attends church regularly. Her husband says she has developed “feelings of superiority.”

Explanations: The uninjured parts of her brain have assumed the work of the excised part; remaining bits of the thinking part of her brain, now unencumbered by the tumor, serve her adequately; her unusual ability to concentrate may be due to a lack of mental side channels characteristic of whole-brained individuals.

Brain Squeeze. When they suddenly sit up, stand up, drop into a chair, fall into bed or tumble, some people get dizzy, may even develop headaches. Immediate cause: sudden shifting of blood and other fluids within the brain, skull and spinal column. These squeeze the brain unduly. Usual underlying cause: hardening of the arteries and failure of the subtle body mechanism which should instantaneously regulate blood pressure and circulation.

To study such “cranial-vertebral dynamics,” Dr. Abraham Myerson, whom Harvard last week appointed clinical professor of psychiatry, and Dr. Julius Loman of Boston contrived a pressure gauge which registers brain squeeze when a hollow needle is pushed into the carotid artery (in the neck). Thus they have already found that pressure in the head is lowered when a person rests on his hands and knees. That posture hence may give temporary relief to some kinds of headaches and dizziness. Lying flat on the back raises the pressure on the brain. A dose of adrenaline also raises pressure. Coffee lowers pressure.

7 Points of Happiness. So long as a person:

1) Is satisfied with his own looks, no matter what others may think;

2) Does not worry about being weak or sickly;

3) Takes charge of situations where he can, and willingly follows the leader where he must;

4 ) Is manly (or womanly);

5) Charms the opposite sex as much as he desires;

6) Asks no more of the future than he can reasonably expect to earn from that future;

7) Has a private philosophy about death and future life;

So long as a person can remain contented about these points, reasoned Dr. Paul Schilder of Manhattan, that person will not go crazy.