| Summary: | "In the preface to the first edition, I pointed out the need for having standardized guides and simplified manuals. I made no pretense that the present Synopsis was intended to be a complete textbook which would place in the hands of the practitioner or the student a full knowledge of the field of neuropsychiatry. It has, of necessity, certain limitations. Each type of proper neurological or psychiatric treatment almost requires a textbook in itself, and without practical experience and demonstration, the education of the physician in the subjects covered by this Synopsis is incomplete. The second edition should continue to serve as a simplified systematic coverage, of neuropsychiatry and should aid the student in organizing his thinking, even supplying his memory with certain basic facts. At the same time, it should serve to spare him bewildering detail. I hope the reader will find this second edition to be much improved. The termination of the war enabled the writer to eliminate paragraphs on the military aspect of the subject, and thus to utilize the space for illustrations and diagrams. In the section on psychiatry, some chapters have been added: those on Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychiatric Therapy. Others have been rewritten, such as the one on Psychopathic Personality. Many reviewers tried to decide whether the psychiatric part of the book was written as a "Freudian" or by a follower of Adolph Meyer, or by some other doctrinaire, and the writer wishes to make it clear that a more or less eclectic plan was followed, neither ignoring nor overemphasizing the psychoanalytic, the psychobiologic, or the physiologic schools of psychiatry. In the section on Neurology, many of the recommendations as to medication are changed, particularly recommendations with regard to modern drugs, such as penicillin and the so-called sulfa group. A new chapter has been added on Disorders of Symbol Use"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
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