Old names die hard. Recently someone proposed that the name of everything should be changed automatically every five years; but it is doubtful whether even such a drastic expedient would dissipate the idea that there is a clinical psychiatric entity covered by the term "puerperal psychosis." This contribution is not merely another attempt to purify psychiatric nomenclature.
SCOPE AND GENERAL STATISTICS
Scope.
—The work includes a survey of fifty consecutive cases of psychoses (3 per cent. of the general admission rate) that appeared during the puerperal period. The review looks somewhat beyond the usual symptomatic-diagnostic perspective, and considers such points as family history, personality, onset, previous physical and mental record, course, prognosis and treatment in their influential relationships to the types of psychoses. Finally, we compare these fifty cases from a private hospital with a separate group from a public institution.
Diagnosis.
—Diagnosis, which is usually dismissed with too much