DR. SMITH ELY JELLIFFE, New York: Dr. Southard has heretofore launched us
upon very large subjects. I can well recall in one of his previous
communications the fascinating correlations drawn between structural changes
and the character of the psychological signs. In dementia praecox
particularly, he has shown us how auditory symptoms group about temporal
atrophies and optical signs with the occipital and so forth and so on. He
now proposes to thrust us into a larger and much more intricate sphere of
activity as to the representation in the cortex of other changes which as he
has described are inframicroscopical or inframacroscopical. In other words,
there must be some type of correlation between the projection in the
cerebral structure of the organ itself which is cerebrally represented and
certain mental signs. If I see what Dr. Southard has been thinking about,
we are certainly engaged in a very fascinating topic. It is well known from
the standpoint of topographical cerebral correlation that the brain is
nothing but a series of body symbols, as it were. Adler has entered this
field and approaches the problem by saying that the inferior organ, liver,
kidney, or what not, is related to a similar defective cerebral
representation of the organ, thus introducing into the nemological mechanism
the task of compensating for the defective structure. Dr. Southard wishes to
try to map out these defects in the cerebral structures and thus reason
backwards to the somatic inferiority. I confess he lifts me into ideal
regions. Such stimuli are enjoyable and provocative of development.
DR. TOM A. WILLIAMS, Washington, D. C: I conceive Dr. Southard's purpose
somewhat differently from Dr. Jelliffe whose thought seems to be somewhat
like that of Henry Head when he published his paper in reference to
hallucinations, corresponding to various head zones in correspondence with
different visceral areas and with special sense organs, eye, ear and so on.
I have conceived Dr. Southard as being a direct chemical in line with
Folius' pathology researches. If that is the case we have a great many
clinical cases which might be underlined with his central thought.
PRESIDENT HALL: It is almost too good to be true if Dr. Southard has really
made connections between delusions of personality and the great topic of
character. It illustrates the old Hippocratic saw, "God-like is the man who
is also a philosopher." Character might almost be called a name for all the
mysteries of psychology, and from Mill's ethology and the old phrenologies
of temperament that Wundt adopts with slight modifications, we have really
made little progress. It seems to me very significant that Dr. Southard
should interest himself, as his paper leads one to judge he does, in such
problems as Shand's somewhat abstract work, and should seek correlations
with legal characterology like that of Roscoe Pound. It would be of great
interest to know whether Dr. Southard obtained his differentiations purely
from pathological cases or whether, accepting Shand or Pound or both, using
their distinctions as apperceptive organs, he unconsciously reads their
distinctions into his cases. His paper, at any rate, is a genuine
contribution as well as an encouragement to those who seek to correlate the
normal with the abnormal.
DR. JAMES J. PUTNAM, Boston: I only want to express my warm sympathy with
Dr. Southard's scheme. This careful working out of correlations one would
say is a good method of scientific research and must lead to something. I
think Dr. Southard would rather avoid the suggestion of CAUSES for the
results that he found, but the METHOD appears safe and profitable.
DR. JOHN T. MACCURDY, New York: As another psychoanalyst it gives me
pleasure to hear this paper. As a psychoanalyst, and one who has done most
of his work with the delusions. of the insane, I must say that I have felt
all along that psychoanalysis fails utterly when it tries to account for the
manifest content of a delusion. We can trace the psychological stages from
the manifest content in varying delusions back to a more or less constant
unconscious striving-- the latent content. The tendency of this latent
content to appear as delusions depends on a defect of adaptation, which must
have a physical basis probably of a general nature. The delusions, in many
cases, are symbols of the latent content. From a psycho-analytic standpoint,
the problem presented in Dr. Southard's paper is "Why is a certain symbol
chosen in one case and another in another individual?" It may well be that
specific organic factors operate here. One could imagine that the mechanism
is purely psychological. In a hepatic condition, for instance, the attention
of the patient may be directed to that part of the body which is affected by
the pathological process in the liver and that for this reason the ideas
which appear refer to generations in that region. At least we may hope for
definite and interesting results from elaboration of the method outlined by
Dr. Southard's statistics.
DR. SOUTHARD: I am rather astonished and well pleased at the cordial
reception of my little statistical work on delusions and upon the elaborate
discussion. As to Dr. Hall's question whether my data were collected to
prove the a priori contention concerning the correlation of unpleasantness
with lesions below the diaphragm, I would say that I expressed a suspicion
of this correlation in my paper on "How Far is the Environment Responsible
for Delusions," (Journal of Abnormal Psychology, June-July, 1913). I was
stimulated to finish my article by the appearance of Shand's book on "The
Foundations of Character" and the articles on "Personality" by Prof. Roscoe
Pound which have been appearing in the Harvard Law Review.
"Dyslalia Viewed as a Centre Asthenia" was the title of a paper read by Dr.
Walter B. Swift, Boston.[1]
[1] Reserved for Publication.