a58 AUSTkACTS

graphic types with insufficiency or hyperfunction of certain of these glands.
The thyroid is the gland of 'emotion' and 'rapidity' (writing very unequal,
rapid, sometimes jerky, pointed and sharp) and the suprarenal is the gland
of 'intensity' and of 'sustained courage' (writing firm, maintained, rather
angular). With suprarenal insufficiency handwriting becomes light, soft,
frequently small, sinuous, and sometimes tending to incline downwards.
Hypothyroidals have slow, hesitating and round writing. Certain graphic
signs are common to the functional disorders of different glands; thus, writing
which shows irregular formation of the strokes in such letters as b, 1, or t, has
been observed in the ovarian insufficiency of puberty and the menopause and
sometimes in parathyroid hypofunction.

It goes without saying that we must interpret such results with very
considerable caution.

C. S. R.

Ppcbopatboloom.
PSYCHOLOGY.

[151] The effect of attitude upon feeling.-E. FRANcIs WELLS. Aner. Jour.
Psychol., 1930, xlii, 571.

WHEN studying affective experience under a general instruction to describe
the total, the observer's initial attitude tends to vary widely and unpredictably.
Three types are described; the critical affective, the critical perceptive, and
the common-sense attitude. The critical affective attitude is to react affectively
to the stimulus and to observe critically the total experience. The critical
perceptive attitude is to observe the stimulus-experience critically without
reacting affectively to it. The common-sense attitude is that with which
we take experience in everyday life as opposed to the critical laboratory set.

Experimental results show that the attitude with which one approaches
an affective situation plays an important part in determining one's reaction to
it. The nature of the affective reaction varies widely under different attitudes.

C. S. R.

NEUROSES AND PSYCHONEUROSES.

[152] Movement and types in children.-C. L. C. BURNS. P8yche, 1930, xi, 63.
AN attempt has been made to observe a certain number of nervous children,
part of whose treatment consists in attending a class in Margaret Morris
movement. The following main differentiation has been made:

1. In certain children all the elements of movement are disintegrated
-jerky, excessive, or inco-ordinated.

2. In another type, time seems to be affected more than balance, and there
is poor, jerky rhythm.

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PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 5

3. In a more common type, balance is poor, time is fair, and rhythm
tends to improve with balance.

The question then arises of correlating these groups with the different
types and the different forms of nervous disorder common to each. In Moscow
Kretschmer's types have been used as a basis of a study in aptitudes and
motor activity of children. The ' schizoid ' type was found to go with liter'd ry
and musical ability and a sense of graphic composition but little power of
execution; the sense of rhythm tends to be sensory rather than motor, i.e.,
the translation into movement is inadequate; movement itself tends to be
awkward and slack. In the case of ' cycloids ' the aptitudes are of a concrete
and realistic tendency: there is good power of movement, technical ability
and power of graphic execution. In addition we have a 'hysteric ' type the
members of which are unstable and impressionable and have a good sense of
rhythm and movement. There is finally an ' epileptoid ' class whose actions
are strongly instinctive and impulsive.

Gourevitch acknowledges the inadequacy of Kretschmer's categories and
takes a more neurological view, classifying many types of movement by the
degree of control, or lack of it, from different levels of the nervous system:
cerebrum, pyramidal system, cerebellum, etc. Applying this viewpoint he
finds that those of ' asthenic ' type, for example, are lacking in rhythm, in the
power of arrest and change of movement, and in automatic and associated
movements. What is needed is a simpler division and one that is based rather
on the physiological level. The criterion for this may be found in the degree
of posture and tone.

The first two types of disturbed movement-those who show excessive,
jerky, and inco-ordinate movements-are correlated with children who are
in the main hypertonic; among these are found cases of tics, stammering,
general restlessness and excitability, and also various forms of behaviour
reactions such as tempers, truancy and stealing. With these can be grouped
the hysterical, and some of the post-choreic forms of twitching. With the
third type of movement disorder is associated the hypotonic-a character
which is disturbed by lack of confidence, too much dependence on the mother;
and symptoms such as general nervousness, bed-wetting, and night-terrors.
The practical application lies in this: for the first-the tense, assertive,
' arhythmic ' type-movements are prescribed which are on the whole relaxed,
slow, and of flowing rhythm; and for the second-the hypotonic-movements
with greater variety of tempo, quick change of balance, and more life.

C. S. R.

[153] Psychology and hysteria.-J. H. VAN DER Hoop. Arch. of Neurol. and
Psychiat., 1930, xxiv, 324.

FROM the study of a series of 150 cases, the author divides cases of hysteria
into (a) those in which the psychism (acquired psychic mechanisms) is of chief

359

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importance; (b) those in which the hysterical reactions spring from a primitive
form of mind; (c) those in which there is an interaction of hysterical psychisms
with extrovert adaptation; (d) those in which there is an interaction of
hysterical psychisms with introverted feeling; and (e) those in which " one
finds the expansion of the hysterical psychism by the influence of extroverted
feeling." Examples of typical cases are given.

Hysterical symptoms may arise in persons of any type when external
circumstances become extremely difficult, and are elicited most readily in
primitive or adolescent persons. In extroverts and in those whose pre-
dominating function is feeling, hysterical manifestations tend to develop more
lasting and elaborate forms than in other people.

G.DEM.R.

[154] The pathogenesis of functional cramps (Sur la pathog6nie des crampes
fonctionelles).-FEDELE NEGRO. Revue neurol., 1929, i, 948.

THE writer argues that occupational cramps or spasms are the expression of
lesions of the 'extrapyramidal sympathetic system,' and that the primary
disorder is localised in the globus pallidus and locus niger; he believes it
involves sensory sympathetic terminations, with reaction on spinal centres and
thus on efferent sympathetic fibres destined for the innervation of sarcoplasm.
He assumes a sarcoplasmic hypertonus and considers the psychical element
may be entirely awanting; thus he places such occupational neuroses with
organic nervous affections.

J.V.

PSYCHOSES.

[155] A new diagnostic test for introversion-extroversion.-C. A. NEYMANN
and K. D. KOELSTEDT. Jour. Abrnorm. Psychol., 1929, xxiii, 482.

THE test is composed of 50 statements, to each of which the patient or subject
tested answers ' yes ' or ' no.' There is no implication of right or wrong in
any of them, and they are to be considered merely from the viewpoint of
personal like or dislike.

It has been standardized on 100 cases of schizophrenia and 100 of manic-
depressive psychosis. The results coincide in no less than 93 per cent. of the
cases with those obtained by prolonged clinical observation.

Similar results have been obtained by applying the test to 200 normal
persons. It is given in extenso in the paper. J. S. P.

[156] Personality factors in alcoholism.-H. H. HART. Arch. of Neurol. and
Pqychiat., 1930, xxiv, 116.

A STUDY of 30 cases of alcoholism of which five were in women. The conclu-
sions reached are that, in most instances, there is a constitutional instability

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4360 ABSTRACTS

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