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General laws of psychophysiology have not yet been satisfactorily formulated, despite decades of research by psychologists, psychiatrists, and biologists. In recent years a shift of emphasis toward a psychosomatic approach to problems of human illness has occurred. This has resulted in greater concern with research directly applied to specific illnesses in attempts to pinpoint the role of disturbed emotions in their etiology.An essential problem in psychosomatic research is the inherent difficulty in determining what factors in the personality and which of its past experiences should properly be correlated with the symptoms of an organ dysfunction. In clinical studies variables are chosen in the psychological and in the somatic systems, and, without clear understanding of their dynamic and temporal relations, they become the basis for the presumed etiological understanding of the psychosomatic disease. Such formulations, attempting to relate two discrete proc-

Once again we are immersed in a period of intense interest in pharmacotherapy in psychiatry. The recent advent of chlorpromazine, reserpine, pipradrol (Meratran) and its derivatives, meprobamate (Miltown), etc., has catalyzed interest in the field, and our specialty journals are filled with enthusiastic reports. Physicians in diverse medical specialties frequently prescribe these drugs to patients with almost any variety of affective component in their symptom pattern. Such an intensely hopeful response once again reflects the unfulfilled therapeutic needs of the psychiatric profession, which potentiate the hope of quick closure for many problems. It is natural to empathize with those persons responsible for therapeutic programs in our state hospitals when they become enthusiastic over a new type of therapy. They have the greatest needs and the largest immediate responsibility of the profession. At present, as a group, they are very enthusiastic about the new drugs, and this is of profound social importance. It prompted Nolan Lewis at a recent meeting to use the old adage, "You should treat as many patients as possible with the drugs while the effects still last." Psychiatric Research and Training, however, no such enthusiasm has been generated. Six months ago we sent out a questionnaire to our staff in an effort to assess its experience with the newer drugs. Chlorpromazine had been prescribed for a total of 51 patients, two-thirds of whom were outpatients. The staff psychiatrists, as a group, reported quite poor results, and in general they were unim¬ pressed with the effect of the drugs. During the past six months we have evalu¬ ated the use of both chlorpromazine and reserpine on inpatients. Our present data comprise essentially anecdotal and descrip¬ tive material on 60 patients, 42 of whom re¬ ceived chlorpromazine and 18 reserpine. The nosological grouping of the patients includes a fairly representative sample of our patient population; thus, 38% were depressive pa¬ tients, of whom two-thirds were of the agi¬ tated variety, and 29% were schizophrenic; in 20% the diagnosis indicated high degrees of anxiety, 8% had organic brain diseases, and 5% were manic. In terms of agitation, 5% of the patients showed none, 36% mild, 42% moderate, and 17% severe. The high¬ est dosage of chlorpromazine was 400 mg. a day, while the highest dosage of reserpine was 16 mg. a day. Only 5 of 42 patients on chlorpromazine received the treatment over 30 days. Of the 18 patients on reserpine, 7 received the drug over 30 days.Since the differences between the effects of chlorpromazine and reserpine were indis¬ tinguishable, we shall present them as a composite group. Forty per cent of the pa¬ tients showed no effects or side-effects alone.