It is admitted that specific diseases, such as heart disorders, tuberculosis and chronic interstitial nephritis, bring in their wake a series of well-defined and acknowledged mental symptoms, but it is yet to be generally accepted that arrested development in the intestines is a factor in retardation and the mental abnormalities of children, and that it is a causative factor in the mental disorders of adults.
Mental hygiene is taken by many of those who deal with its problems to refer solely to manifestations from the angle of abnormal social reactions. They accordingly set about bettering conditions by mental cures or by social adjustments. After two years' experience in a community clinic for psychopathic work, it appears to us that the percentage of cases in which the problem is so purely mental or social that it can be constructively altered by the psychanalytic method or by social adjustment is very small.