During the last few years it has become more and more apparent that there exists a considerable impatience and even intolerance between traditional religious thought, and certain assertions on the part of social sciences and psychology, which have become influenced by psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis, as is generally known, was born out of psychopathology and both sociology and psychopathology joined hands recently to make friends with one another and with anthropology. The result of all this is the almost emphatic claim that psychopathology and social sciences have become scientific disciplines—or that they have become more influenced by the scientific method than by philosophy. To a certain extent this claim is justified; yet and almost in spite of this there is a far cry between the modern meaning of the term anthropology and the meaning which anthropologia had originally. Instead of being the science of man, it has become more the science of human institutions and social relationships; it has fallen under the heavy weight of statistical averages, which are still mistakenly accepted as the best entering wedge into the field of true (scientific!) knowledge.

A focused beam of ultrasound can be used to produce selective accurately localized lesions in central nervous systems which are quantitatively reproducible from one animal to another.

Correlations have been noted between certain persistent personality traits on the one hand and certain patterns within the normal range of variation of the EEG on the other. Some of these correlations had been based on impressionistic assessments of personality, and the following paper contains the results of part of an investigation which was undertaken in order to check these assessments by a more objective method, and to define more precisely some of the qualities reported.

Many endocrine disturbances have been described as accompanying disturbances in mentation. Single investigations giving a static picture at a certain stage of the disease contribute comparatively little to the understanding of the pathognomonic significance of the biochemical change, even if they are found to be statistically significant.

Goal-seeking behaviour, once a great mystery, is now beginning to be understood. In its simplest forms it is, in fact, understood to-day almost completely. Thus the theory of the simple regulator, such as the thermostat, not only includes an extensive repertoire of techniques, but the elementary principles, of the necessity for negative feedback for instance, are becoming scientific commonplaces. In getting to know, however, about these simple systems and their principles, we should not make the mistake of thinking that there is nothing more to be learned. On the contrary, in real life many an important goal is to be achieved only through some quite complex pattern of behaviour, a pattern for which the simple concept of “negative feedback” is quite inadequate. It is of these more complex patterns that I wish to speak to-day.

The present paper is concerned with some aspects of stability and of steady periodical changes in dynamical systems. After a brief survey of the classical theory due to Poincaré, I shall sum up some of my recent work relating to a certain class of systems not considered in that theory. It is, of course, assumed that this work is relevant to the main subject of this meeting; in fact, in the course of writing down these notes I was fortunate enough to be able to look (although far too cursorily) through Dr. Ashby's book, Design for a Brain, and have been struck by what appeared to me to be a remarkable parallelism between our lines of thought. The arrangement of the subject-matter has been avowedly influenced by this assumption of relevancy; however, I shall keep to my legitimate grounds as a physicist and shall leave it to you to fill in what ever “psychological” conclusions you may think justified.

I—The Problem. II—Method: (i) General Outline; (ii) Apparatus; (iii) Test procedure. III—Subjects. IV—Results: (i) Correction for arbitrary zero; (ii) Analysis. V—Discussion. VI—Summary. References.

Although the development of factor analysis has led, at least operationally, to more precise description of the field of human cognition, controversy as to the nature of intelligence has not ended, although there has been a marked narrowing of the differences between extremes of view. On the one hand, the monarcheal, or single factor idea, has been superseded by Spearman's two factor theory which has in turn been extended to the consideration of group factors. On the other hand, the multifactorial approach has been narrowed and refined by Thurstonian Multiple Factor Analysis. The primary Mental Abilities described by this method were found to be intercorrelated giving rise to a second order factor which Thurstone has suggested, may be not unlike Spearman's “g”. Despite this basic disagreement as to the nature of the variable under consideration, results obtained have led investigators to almost complete agreement that what they have measured as intelligence is largely genetically determined.

Investigations carried out in the past into the steroid hormone excretion rate of mental patients have been limited to the quantitative determination of the total compounds. Assay of neutral 17-ketosteroids in particular, has revealed no significant difference in the excretion rates of schizophrenics from that of normal controls (Leth Pedersen, 1947; Lingjaerde and Lierasylet, 1949 et al). Pincus (1943) has studied the diurnal excretion pattern of 17-ketosteroids in normal persons; a different pattern was shown to occur in some schizophrenics (Reiss, Hemphill, Gordon and Cook, 1949). Some schizophrenic patients also show considerably greater fluctuations in the 24-hour excretion rate than normal persons (Reiss et al., 1949), these fluctuations disappearing after successful treatment of the patients (Reiss, 1952). An increased percentage of excreted 3 β-hydroxy-17-ketosteroids has recently been reported (Mittelman, Romanoff, Pincus and Hoagland, 1952) in schizophrenics compared with normal people, the total ketosteroid excretion rate being found similar in both groups. Increased β-ketosteroid excretion rate was also seen by Reiss, Hemphill, Gordon and Cook (1949), during depressive phases in a state of manic depressive psychosis.

It is recognized that the differential diagnosis between psychosis and mental defect is apt to present difficulties; and the presence of aments in mental hospitals and of psychotics in homes for the mentally defective, though often due to lack of appropriate accommodation, suggests that the diagnostic problem is not always successfully solved. Hitherto, when a certified defective has been found to be psychotic, it has generally been assumed that psychosis has supervened on amentia, defectives being regarded as more prone to psychotic upset than are persons of normal intelligence. The alternative proposition—that mental defect may on occasions be due to psychosis in youth—has received comparatively little attention. This study is an attempt to find out whether psychotic illness beginning in childhood is an important cause of mental defect.

At the moment, cybernetics cannot point to any established triumph for, as a science, it is very young and is being applied to psychiatry in few laboratories. Nevertheless, I hope to show that there are good reasons for thinking that its relation to psychiatry is close, and that its application will eventually yield a rich harvest.

The following paper is concerned with the statistical analysis of the clinical data about nearly 500 schizophrenic patients. About half of these received insulin treatment, while the others did not. The patients were followed up for periods of between 5 and 10 years, so that the material is also classifiable by good and bad outcome. A full account of this clinical material, collected and studied at the University Psychiatric Clinic at Lisbon by one of us (P.P.), has already been published in the Portuguese language (Polonio, 1950).

Epiloia occupies an intermediate position between the neoplasms on the one hand and other diseases, such as Huntington's chorea and Tay-Sachs disease, which are system disturbances, presumably based on a metabolic disorder. The lesions in the disease-complex of epiloia might at first sight appear mainly neoplastic in form. Thus the brain nodules have the form of gliomata. Polycystic kidneys may be classed as neoplastic (Jeanbrau, 1928; Vines, 1949). In some cases a frank hypernephroma may develop (Kirpicznik, 1910; Berg, 1913; Ferraro and Doolittle, 1937). The rarely encountered heart lesions may take the form of rhabdomyomata, whereas the skin lesions of the face which are pathognomonic of the disease are described as sebaceous adenomata (Figs. 1 and 2), i.e. benign neoplasms of the sebaceous glands of the face in the area to either side of the nose. In fact the facial eruption is seldom simply adenomatous but is complicated by elements of an angiomatous or warty nature. The heart lesion may likewise involve a variety of elements.