The Centenary Meeting of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association should have taken place in 1940. I was honoured in 1939 by the Association nominating me as President-Elect. Much has happened since then, and for five years we have met under the able presidency of Dr. T. C. Graves, whose inaugural meeting had necessarily to be a short one; it was held in London and was limited to the delivery of his presidential address. I feel that we owe a great debt to Dr. Graves for his constant attendance and work, often under difficult war conditions.

The technique of electroencephalography has become to neurophysiology what the microscope is to histology. It is probable that by this technique neurophysiologists will achieve a comprehensive knowledge of the functional organization of the brain. While the EEG has been used most successfully for this type of research, it has also been applied with no less enthusiasm to clinical problems of neurology and psychiatry. In certain cerebral disorders, for example epilepsy, where knowledge had already made considerable advance, the EEG technique was immediately found to have application. But in what may be called “the problems of function” provided by the main psychiatric reactions of schizophrenia and manic-depression, and in relation to individual differences of temperament, intelligence and personality, in all these the EEG has so far proved of little value.

In the opinion of psychiatrists it should be possible to detect at the time of recruitment a considerable proportion of those later destined to prove unsuitable owing to psychiatric disabilities. Examination by psychiatrists, however, takes a considerable time, and it is impossible for them to examine fully more than a certain proportion of entrants. Thus, in all countries during the war the need has been felt for a preliminary screening procedure to indicate those for whom a full psychiatric interview is desirable. It is the purpose of this paper to outline a method differing in certain ways from those previously described.

The present paper reports the results of certain experiments carried out in an attempt to obtain information on the increase in suggestibility which is often said to follow the administration of certain narcotics, in particular sodium amytal and nitrous oxide. The set-up of the experiment, and the results and conclusions reached, may be looked at from two different points of view, viz., (1) with regard to the light that is thrown on the action of the narcotics examined, and (2) with regard to the nature of suggestibility.

During the hypoglycaemia produced by insulin for the treatment of psychoses, disorders of speech occur as symptoms of the dissolution and restitution of cerebral function. Although transitory, they can be observed accurately, as the hypoglycaemic condition is repeated daily for weeks in the same patient. They have in fact been studied and commented on by several workers since the method was initiated by Sakel in 1934; we shall refer later to some of the findings and views in the literature. In this paper an attempt will be made to describe and classify the various speech disorders, and to relate their characteristic features to other hypoglycaemie symptoms occurring at the same time. Attention will be drawn to certain speech-like symptoms which hitherto have been scarcely noticed. The possible influence of the underlying psychosis will also have to be considered.

In bilateral prefrontal leucotomy inter alia the fronto-subthalamic, the fronto septal and fronto-hypothalamic (posterior) projections may be severed, together with reciprocally projecting tracts. These may represent the anatomical basis for the altered autonomic visceral disturbances observed following operations. The reports on bilateral leucotomy emphasize the post-operative “improvement in autonomic functions with a tendency to gain weight” (Vonderahe). After lobotomy transient visceral disturbances make their appearance, such as disturbed sphincter control and slightly but permanently decreased blood pressure, whilst vasomotor disturbances and sweating on the contralateral half of the body have been noted following unilateral lobotomy.

The purpose of this paper is to report some observations on the Rorschach test in two cases of severe concussional head-injury. Detailed studies of such cases in the Rorschach literature are relatively few, and none, so far as the present writer is aware, includes observations on the test during the more acute phases of the post-traumatic disorder. In addition, therefore, to placing further cases of head-injury on record, it is hoped that our observations may throw light on the psychological changes associated with remission of the post-traumatic confusional state and recovery of normal consciousness. It is further hoped that the Rorschach observations made at a later stage of recovery in these cases may have some bearing on our knowledge and assessment of the chronic post-traumatic condition.

Recent psychological investigations have left little doubt that considerable mental deterioration takes place with advancing age. The work of the United States Army Psychologists in the last war (22), of Beeson (1), Jones and Conrad (10), Weisenburg, Roe and McBride (21), Sorensen (18), Miles (11, 12, 13, 14), Ruch (17), Thorndike (19), Wechsler (20), Gilbert (7); Cleveland and Dysinger (3) and others makes it apparent that not only do the various mental abilities decline with age, but also that they decline at different rates.

This paper describes the case of a girl to whom certain mental tests were given while she was under hypnosis. The results of these tests are compared with the results obtained when she was in her normal state.

Ucko (1935) showed that the reaction time of the Takata test on serum can be reduced from 24 hours to 90 minutes by modifying the concentration and volume of the reagents. These reagents were applied with a further slight modification in the amount of the fluid tested and as a one-tube method for cerebrospinal fluid (Fleischhacker, 1938). 177 cerebrospinal fluids were examined, and the conclusion was drawn that the M.T.R. will indicate even very fine disturbances in the protein composition of cerebrospinal fluid. Later the test, together with others, was applied to another 165 C.S.Fs. from neurological and psychiatric patients and was found to give weak positive results in many psychoses of the so-called “non-organic” type (especially typical schizophrenics), while it remained negative in manic depressives and neurotic disorders (Fleischhacker, 1943).