The Patient as a Person.

This book primarily attempts to emphasize the relation of the mind to the body and to force recognition of the difference between illness and disease. A person suffering from a definite somatic disease may not feel ill, and the cause of many an illness may rest entirely in the fields of conscious and subconscious thought, with resulting disturbances in bodily function but no discoverable somatic disease. In addition, instances are being found of disturbances of bodily functions which lead in time to somatic changes. By the method of presenting case histories Dr. Robinson discloses the sociologic background of various routine types of hospital patients and proves conclusively that failure to take this factor into account may completely prevent cure of the illness from which the patient is suffering. He makes a plea for the formal attempt to teach medical students this psychobiologic concept of the patient. Furthermore, he points out