Evening star., 1939-01-22
New Type Of Psychiatry Seeks
Cause, to Cure Society's Ills
Director of William A. White Foundation DIAGNOSES
Current World Malady as Weird
Hate.Disease
By Thomas K. Henry.

The physician of sick states-a brand
new profession in the worlds hanging
out his shingle in Washington.
The term is literal-not q symbolic
designation of the sociologist, the econ
omist or the politician. The new pro-
fession is that of doctors of medicine,
trained in the medical discipline, handy
as any family physician with their clini-
cal thermometers and stethoscopes. They
are specialists in abnormalities of human
behavior, men most of whose training
has been among the insane. Their par
ticular job has been to find out why
madmen act as they do, and this gives
them clues to the reasons why sup
posedly normal persons act as they do.
Now a state, or any other kind of
society, is an amalgamation of indi-
viduals. If the majority of them begin
acting queerly and dangerously to their
own welfare, it is evidence that some
common psychopath-c factor is
at work among these individuals, and
the doctors job is to find it, just as he
would look for acidity of the stomach or
an oedipus complex. The viewpoint is
purely objective, with emotion entirely
eliminated and with no consideration
whatsoever of moral sanctions
War May Bring Summons.
Just at present these doctors are en-
gagged in research necessary for laying
the foundations of this new medical
discipline dealing with mans relations to
man. Their services have all been
gratuitous. No crazy state has yet seen
fit to engage their services, but the day
may come when a threat of war. for
example, will mean hurry-up call for
the psychiatrist just as one now is
called when an individual runs amuck.
The trouble has been in the past that
when a majority of people are crazy
then that particular sort OF crazness has
automatically become sanity and the
sane people have been locked up in in
sane asylums-human societies having
been very clumsily managed by econo-
mists, politicians and the like. The
establishment of the Washington foun-
dation, which may change all this, has
long story behind it,
Two years ago there died in Washing
ton an extraordinary physician-one of
the most notable figures of his genera
ton. Perhaps few profounder thinkers
have lived in America. He was a man
trained in the discipline of medicine
All his life he remained loyal to that
discipline. But, especially in his later
years, he took all knowledge for his
province. He felt that all facts of ma
ture had some bearing on the maladies--
mental or physical, and he drew no hard
line between them-of men and women.
Cleaned in Strange Corners.
Washington is place or many gather
ings of scientists There was hardly one
of them which this man did not attend,
cleaning bits of medical and psychiatric
wisdom in strange corners. Medicine, to
him, was not included between the
leather covers of any compendium Of
medical practice. 1t was not matter OF
pathology and pharmacology and anat-
omy. 1t was all these and history, poetry
astronomy etymology and entomology,
higher mathematics and archaeology,
geology and epistomology. All, he
thought, could be brought into COM
prehensive pattern within the medical
discipline
Most of his life was passed with the
sick of mind. Much Of his time was
taken up with the routine of admins
tration demanded of the head of great
institution, approving bills for the pur-
chase of cod liver oil and potatoes, die
tating letters to Congressman, and the
like. But in the midst of it all he some
how found time not only for the formula
ton of his synthetic philosophy of medi-
cine but for the education of many
pupils who were to carry on his life work.
When he died these men and women
decided to perpetuate his memory by the
establishment of an institution for edu-
cation and research in the problems to
which he had given his greatest atten-
ton. The result is the William A. White
Psychiatric Foundation, which numbers
among its staff members and directors
some of the foremost physicians of the
mind in America-most of them one
time pupils of the late superintendent of
ST. Elizabeth's.
Must Find and Eliminate.
DR.. White studied the behavior of in
dividuals and of the masses of individ-
uals making up societies purely from a
medical point of view-however un-
orthodox some of the elements he in
troduced into his medicine. This is
strikingly different point of view from,
that of any other profession-say that of
lawyer or clergyman. 1t does not in
volve, per Sc, any concepts of right or
wrong. tuberculosis is neither moral nor
immoral. 1t is neither legal nor illegal
Nor is schizophrenia. Nor is dementia
tremens. Malaria is not denounced or
legislated against. Sermons or laws
never cured single case of involution
melancholia. The physicians problem is
to find out what is causing the trouble
and set it right.
This long has been recognized in the
field of psychiatry, so far as the indi-
vidual Is concerned. Doctors are unani-
nous that nobody can be whipped or