"In accordance with this arrangement the Bureau, with the assistance of the Committee on Statistics of the American Medico-Psychological Association, has prepared a manual to assist the institutions in compiling their annual statistics and has printed a series of forms to be used in preparing statistical reports. The manual and duplicate forms will be furnished free to all co-operating institutions, and it is earnestly hoped that they will be generally adopted, so that a national system of statistics of mental diseases may become an actuality. "It is recommended that the standardized tables be used in the annual reports of the institutions so far as possible and that a duplicate copy of the tables be sent to the Bureau of Uniform Statistics of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene as soon as possible after the end of the fiscal year of the institution."

The pamphlet, which contains the report complete, may be secured by addressing the National Committee on Mental Hygiene, 50 Union Square, New York City.

The Case of "Spike" O'Donnell. The first concrete case called to the attention of the commission was that of Edward ("Spike") O'Donnell, implicated in the robbery of the Stockmen's Trust and Savings Bank, 5425 South Halsted Street.

A true bill was returned against O'Donnell, December 28, 1917, in which he was charged with robbery. He was admitted to bail in the sum of $25,000.

As an evidence of the law's delay, a brief chronological history of the case may be interesting.

January 8, 1918-On motion of the defendant, the case was continued until February 5.

February 5, 1918-The defendant entered a plea of Not Guilty and the case was continued until March 5.

March 5, 1918-A motion for separate trial was entered and withdrawn.` The trial lasted until March 23. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of receiving stolen property amounting to $1,765, and recommended leniency. A motion for a new trial was entered and argument set for April 25.

April 25, 1918-A motion for a new trial was over-ruled and exception taken by defendant's attorney. O'Donnell was sentenced to the penitentiary and a mittimus was issued as of date April 1, 1918. A motion was made by the defendant's attorney to vacate the order. This was continued to May 7.

May 7, 1918-The case was continued to May 14.

May 14, 1918-The motion to vacate was denied and the case continued until May 17.

May 17, 1918-The court allowed additional time of 15 days to file a bill of exceptions.

June 10, 1918-The court allowed an extension of time to file bill of exceptions to June 17.

June 17, 1918-From June 17 to December 18 nothing appears in the record in the office of the clerk of the Criminal Court.

December 18, 1918-Record shows a motion to vacate the order to stay the mittimus and extends time to January 7.

January 7, 1919-Time extended to January 14.

January 14, 1919-Time extended to January 31.

There is nothing in the records of the Criminal Court clerk's office between January 31 and February 3.

February 3, 1919-The defendant was surrendered in open court.

February 4, 1919 The defendant was remanded to the custody of the Sheriff of Cook County.

February 11, 1919-The defendant in the custody of the sheriff was taken to the state penitentiary at Joliet, Illinois, and delivered to the warden of that institution, to begin the service of his sentence.

It is rumored that efforts will be made at once to obtain the release of O'Donnell at the earliest possible date. It is understood that powerful influences are at work to effect this through political and other influences. O'Donnell's friends are quite confident that his stay at Joliet will be short. It remains to be seen whether the machinations of the friends of this convict will be successful. From Bulletin No. 1 of the Chicago Crime Commission.

REVIEWS AND CRITICISMS

THE UNSOUND MIND AND THE LAW. A Presentation of Forensic Psychiatry by George W. Jacoby. Funk & Wagnalls Company. New York and London. 1918. Pp. 438. $3.00.

To say of any unusual book that it "fills a long-felt want" borders on insult. A community is never really aware of its intellectual or social needs. The constructive thinker is always ahead of his age; he feels the want long before his fellow-men perceive it, and, when his book appears, people are surprised, not because it has been written at last, but because it has never been written before. Dr. Jacoby's book is of this type. One welcomes it with contentment, mingled with wonder that the latent need for it has not long since called it into being. A book of this kind cannot be classed among the "long felt wants," because books, which fill lacunae, already "felt" by everyone, can be nothing more than mediocre compilations.

The title itself, as well as the name of the author, leads us to expect valuable things. Dr. Jacoby's "Leit-Motif," or Motto, is found on page 175, where he writes:

"The forensic psychiatrist

should be able to comprehend

all possible phases of another person's mind and to place himself in all possible situations of daily life."

This promises us absolute fairness, or a whole-hearted attempt at it, while the title and the author's name (the name of a forensic psychiatrist who has had a medicolegal experience second to no other) promises us not only that impartiality, suggested by the Leit-Motif already quoted, but something rarer still-a clean-cut catholicity and completeness in the discussion of all the complex subjects involved. Above all, a new and well-founded dissertation on the mooted question of legal responsibility. For the man, who possesses both the knowledge and the ability, necessary for an analysis of the old outworn ideas of responsibility and for the building up of a sounder, more adequate conception, has been looked for among medicolegal writers during many weary years of constantly disappointed expectation.

These are some of the valuable things that one expects. And in all fairness, it must be said that Dr. Jacoby gives us a great many of them. The actual content of the book begins with the "General Relations between Psychiatry and Jurisprudece." A discussion of "Mental Disorder and Responsibility" follows. Then comes the more practical part of the book: "Examination of the Insane," "Psychiatric Expertism" in detail, with a description of the various types of psychopathic disorder, ending with a chapter on "Special Anomalies," chiefly those of a sexual origin. The book ends with a number of expert reports, given by a supposititious examining psychiatrist on certain selected types of mental cases. Especially valuable are the chapters. on the "Exogenous Causes of Mental Disease" (pages 75 ff) and the "Physiologic-Psychologic Basis of Responsibility," as well as the discussion of Paranoia.

But even in such a book as this, there are statements that may fairly be questioned without captious criticism. In some chapters, it seems as if the author had stopped adding to the fund of his knowledge on certain subjects some ten years ago. One scarcely speaks of Katatonia as a separate disease entity nowadays. And the diagnostic value, attributed by the author to the Abderhalden reaction cannot in any sense be accepted. Recent laboratory results forbid. Several series of "Abderhaldens" (one hundred in each series), made at the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic by Dr. Francis L. Dunham of the clinical staff, have shown how practically useless the reaction is in the diagnosis of Schizophrenia.

This leads one to record a few really serious omissions.

Kraft Ebbing's classic "Psychopathia Sexualis" did not reach its final edition in 1894, the last edition cited by Dr. Jacoby. And the conclusions, contained in later revised editions, differ, often materially, from those of the earlier reprints.

No discussion of Dementia Praecox or Schizophrenia is at all complete without at least some mention of Bleuler's great book on the subject. It is strange not to find it either in index or bibliography. Strange, also, in the chapter on Homosexuality, that no mention is made of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld or of all the scientific investigations on this subject that are associated with him and his colleagues in Berlin.

Strangest of all is it to find, in the entire book, not even a passing reference to Sigsmund Freud. One may not approve of Professor Freud; one may have a violent and stormy mental reaction even to the five letters of his name. But nevertheless, his influence cannot be ignored. And, since his appearance, psychiatry has gained so many new viewpoints, so much new technical machinery of idea and language, that to omit him altogether in such a book as this one of Dr. Jacoby's is worse than playing Hamlet with Hamlet left out. It is like Hamlet, with the complete omission of William Shakespeare. And Dr. Jacoby omits Freud so thoroughly that there is not even a letter "F" in his index.

The discussion of the Drug Addictions is also incomplete. This may justly be deplored. The increasing use of drugs among the noncriminal classes and the making of criminals out of former noncriminal drug users by means of new experiments in legislation, surely make it advisable to give this subject the consideration that it deserves --and needs-needs badly, and never more than now.

Finally and this is of course frankly to be condoned in a book, written probably at odd times, by an immensely busy man, whose daily activities are of much more value to the community than many books

there is the faulty English of misprint and careless construction. Misprints or the omissions of words, that make sentences not understandable. A misuse of common expressions, unfortunately commonly misused by nearly everyone. And an occasionally involved style, that does not help to keep clear a train of thought that is, to the average reader, already difficult enough to follow. "Medical English"

is, I know, a law unto itself. But there can be no reason why medical habits of clear and logical thought should not go hand in hand with. habits of clear and logical expression, not in Americanized or Teutonized English, but in the "King's English," which is still, I think, the standard to which most of us strive to attain.

But it is ungracious to point out these few flaws in a work that is in itself so valuable and so well worth reading more than once. After all, if one dares to criticize in any way, it is only because one expects so much of Dr. Jacoby; because flaws, omissions and mistakes show up more clearly in his work than they would in the work of a lesser craftsman. It is Dr. Jacoby's own fault, if he is so highly esteemed and so universally beloved, that we set for him a standard, of which he himself sometimes falls short. Baltimore.

JOHN R. OLIVER.

"PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION." By Wilder and Wentworth. Richard G. Badger, The Gorham Press, Boston, 1918. Pp. 373. $5.00. There is now and then a book printed which at once takes its permanent place in literature; this book on Personal Identification is such a book. It is the work mainly of Dr. Harris Hawthorne Wilder, Professor of Zoology in Smith College, who for many years has been able to get the charming Smith girls intensely interested in worms, bones, skulls, mice and guinea pigs. This is certainly a measure of his power. This book has been invested with the same interest, although the subject itself is a most interesting one.

The act of identifying things is a universal phase of education of every human being. The factulty is developed from earliest youth, but with most of us it remains to the end an empirical and more or less shallow study, possible sources of error are not considered, and the underlying principles of the subject receive little attention. This book treats the subject of personal identification from the standpoint of the scientist, who first develops the principles applying to the question and then applies the principles to the problem in hand.

Professor Wilder has given long and careful study to the question of identifying human beings by an examination of impressions made from the sole of the foot. This is almost, if not quite, new territory which has been most carefully and laboriously explored; he has made foot prints across a new field. From the date of the publication of this book, "Foot Prints" as a means of identification will have a new significance. Interesting studies in identification also extend into the field of Habits, Gait, Accomplishments, Voice, Handwriting, Preferences, Finger Prints, and other qualities, attributes characteristics and indicia, by which the human family may be described and identified. Professor Wilder even goes into the question of the identification of "Fragmentary, Decomposed and Dried Remains" and the identification of bones and teeth, and he gives a chapter to the identification of the skull and the physical restoration of the face upon the bones.

The book discusses from a scientific standpoint, and in the most thorough manner, the identification of finger prints and the various