As Professor Pierre Marie states in the preface to this book, "It comes timely and marks a new orientation." Chapter I, Theory of Centers: The author reviews the localization of different functions in definite areas of the brain. He points out the influence of certain antiquated ideas on the tendency to localize the nervous functions in anatomic centers and qualifies this tendency as a result of merely a mental attitude rather than of critical scientific thought. The experience with cerebral traumas during the world war discredited the belief in the existence of cortical centers as agglomerations of nerve cells possessing the quality to generate the functions attributed to them. Giving a brief résumé of the "neuron theory" as a basis for the assumption that each neuron is a self-sufficient anatomic unit, a reservoir of forces under tension, which like a "fire in the furnace flares when poked," the author shows