When a frequency distribution of motor vehicle accidents in any particular group is analysed, there is found to be a number of individuals who have a greater proportion of accidents than can be explained by chance alone. Research on the psychology of accident causation has been aimed largely at isolating particular personality characteristics which seem to be associated with high accident liability. However, the results from past research have been far from encouraging. Very little has been conclusively proved regarding the bearing of any one attribute on the accident rate, and there is still no single specific factor that is psychometrically capable of being identified as a predictor of accident liability.

D-L-propranolol has been reported as having a beneficial effect in anxiety (Granville-Grossman and Turner, 1966; Wheatley, 1969; Suzman, 1971). The effect is believed to be due to the drug's (β-adrenergic blocking action which suppresses many of the somatic manifestations of anxiety, such as tachycardia (Turner, Granville-Grossman and Smart, 1965) and tremor (Marsden, Gimlette, McAllister, Owen and Miller, 1968). Although the peripheral manifestations of anxiety may be ameliorated by propranolol it is not clear whether the drug has any effect on the subjective, central feelings of anxiety experienced by the patient (Marsden, 1971).

On 13 May 1969, intercommunal rioting broke out between the Malay and Chinese sections of the population of Kuala Lumpur and continued for a full week. Subsequently a state of emergency was proclaimed, parliamentary government was suspended and the country was placed under the rule of the National Operations Council (a council of top ministers, civil servants and the chiefs of the armed forces and police) which ruled by edict.

Agoraphobia was the name given by Westphal (1871) to the fear of walking through streets and public places. The agoraphobic syndrome, which covers much else and includes fear of confined spaces, crowds, travelling and shopping, was carefully defined by Marks (1969). His full description and review revealed, perhaps surprisingly, that although the desire to escape rapidly from a feared situation has been clearly recognized in the literature, no detailed observation seems to have been made of the rate of locomotion in this condition.

Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome had been considered an organic, often hereditary illness for many years after it was first described in 1885 (1, 2), but when medicine became psychologically oriented, the syndrome was more frequently classified as a psychological illness (3), and patients have been said to be schizophrenic, psychotic, obsessive-compulsive, hysteric, to have inhibited aggression, and eventually to deteriorate intellectually and psychologically. However, no support for common psychopathological and dynamic factors was found in our previous study of 34 patients or in a review of the literature (4). Recently, as medicine has shifted back from a psychological orientation, and as case histories have accumulated, an organic aetiology has been more frequently postulated.

Mild alterations in serum magnesium are said to be symptomless (D. N. S. Kerr in Cecil and Loeb, 1971). Cade (1964) reported high levels in depression but Frizel et al. (1969) found low values restored to normal with clinical recovery. Raised serum magnesium concentrations have been reported in manic patients (Nielson, 1964; Goodwin, Murphy and Bunney, 1968) and schizophrenics (Cade, 1964). These results suggested that serum magnesium had predictive value in the treatment of psychiatric patients, so we estimated pre- and post-treatment serum magnesium concentrations in a number of patients and investigated their relationships with diagnosis and clinical course.

The dangers of transcribed drug lists were emphasized in the Aitken Report (1) and by Trillwood (2). Subsequent work by Crooks (3) and by Wallace (4) has demonstrated the disturbingly high level of transcription errors in other centres.

The Gilles de la Tourette syndrome is a puzzling disorder, usually beginning in childhood. It is characterized by (1) facial and bodily tics progressive in involvement and frequency, (2) grunting and barking noises and, (3) coprolalia (i.e. compulsive obscenities). Although this pattern of behaviour has been described with striking uniformity over the past century (Gilles de la Tourette, 1885; Fernando, 1967; Kelman, 1965; Lucas, 1967; Prabhakaran, 1970), no specific neurological or psychological aetiology has been found.

The term psychogenic headache is not regarded as defining a meaningful diagnostic entity and can be used to refer to any type of headache in which psychological factors appear to play a significant aetiological role.

In Dundee there are six main areas of research interest within each of which several staff are actively engaged. These are:

The biochemistry of manic depressive psychosis;

Some organic and functional correlates of mental subnormality;

Aspects of psychotrophic drug metabolism and use;

Aspects of Personal Construct Theory;

Some psychophysiological correlates of psychosis; and

The correlation between psychiatric symptoms and personality traits.

Bereavement is a crisis from which few people are spared. In spite of its universality, there have been few carefully designed, well documented, systematic studies describing its natural history and its relationship to other affective disturbances.

The incidence of tattooing is known to be high in certain selected groups.

Phobic imagery is used extensively in the treatment of phobic disorders by psychological means. The physiological and subjective accompaniments of such imagery are thus of some importance for both treatment and assessment. An earlier report (Marks et al., 1971a) described a standardized method of assessment of phobic imagery and results in one trial of 16 phobic patients. To date the method has been used in the assessment of 77 phobic patients before and after treatment in 6 different studies. This report summarizes our experience with it and its sensitivity to clinical changes. The main finding was that subjective report was a more consistent discriminator between phobic and neutral images than were measures of heart rate or skin conductance. Nevertheless physiological measures were often useful indicators of clinical changes.

The value of chlorpromazine in combating psychosis and its various symptoms has been firmly established in the last twenty years. The occurrence of sudden death and severe hypotensive reaction after being given the drug has been documented in the world literature (Kelly et al., 1963; Graupner et al., 1964; Rosati, 1964; Hollister et al., 1965; Grollman, 1965; Leestma et al., 1968).