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This pamphlet represents a paper that appeared in the Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten (99:339, 1933). It contains a highly theoretical discussion of the rôle played by social factors in the neuroses. Most of the literature on the social aspects of the neuroses is based largely on general impressions. Statistical data on the subject are almost nonexistent. Birnbaum points out this fact, and his discussion forms no exception to the rule. The views he propounds add nothing to the statements to be found in the psychopathologic (and especially the psychoanalytic) literature. He has evidently made no attempt to acquaint himself with modern scientific sociology, and instead of dealing with concrete social realities he restricts himself to somewhat vague generalizations. Only German literature and German institutions—the latter largely swept away by recent events in Germany—are considered.