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It is with a feeling of genuine gratitude that one puts down a book like that of Semelaigne after reading the sketches of the life and work of the long list of interesting dignitaries of French psychiatry —before and after Pinel. Dreary as the history of psychiatry appears in many ways —it shows how unprepared the human being was and still is in handling his own status as soon as the halo of special divine dispensations failed to work —there are evidences of efforts and sometimes of bright ideas and of sound practical sense which in the aggregate bring credit to the French people and to those who began to include the whole of man in the purview of medicine. But it is a slow advance.
From Sylvius to Pinel (whose work has been presented and discussed in a previous volume) and from Fodéré to Baillarger and