Neuroses are, therefore, the intermedium between the errors and the faults which appeared to us almost normal, and alienation which seemed exceptional and distant from us.  The first appearances of that depression which in a continuous manner descends to alienation are to be found already in the disorders of character which seemed to be quite insignificant.  The miser, the misanthrope, the hypocrite are described by the writer before they are claimed by the physician.  A great number of neuropathic disorders which I have described are related to the popular type of mother-in-law.  This type is not necessarily that of a woman whose daughter has married, but the type of a depressed woman of about fifty, aboulic, discontented with herself and others, domineering, and jealous, because she suffers from the mania of being loved though she is incapable of acquiring any one’s affection.  All exhaustions, all moral failings have the closest connection with neuroses and psychoses.

These reflections prove to us that the alienist physician should interest himself more and more in the treatment of neuroses even slight, to rectifying the disorders of temper, to the education of the young, to the direction of the moral hygiene of his country.  On many of these points America leads the way; your works of social hygiene, the good battle you are righting against alcoholism, are examples for us.  You are the new world, younger, not rendered so inactive by secular habits.  You can act more easily than we.  We may have the advantage, in the old world, of the experience of old people and the habit of observation, but we are slack in reform and action.  “If youth had experience and old age ability,” says one of our proverbs.  We must remain united and join your strength to our experience for the greater progress of the studies which are dear to us and for the greater good benefit of our two countries.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 14:  Cf. Janet, P., Les nevroses, 1909, p. 370.]

[Footnote 15:  Cf. Les Medications psychologiques, 1920, I, p. 112.]

[Footnote 16:  “Les Nevroses,” 1909, p. 384.]

[Footnote 17:  Cf. Janet, P., “Obsessions et Psychestenic,” 1903, vol.  I, p. 997.]

ADDRESS BY DR. WILLIAM L. RUSSELL

[Illustration:  BLOOMINGDALE HOSPITAL, WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK, 1921]

The Chairman:  The year 1921 is rich in anniversaries for the New York Hospital.  Next October we plan to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the granting of our charter.  To-day we are occupied with the Bloomingdale Centenary.  A fortnight ago the twenty-fifth annual graduating exercises of our Training School for Nurses were held in this room.  This year also marks the decennial of Dr. Russell’s term of office as Medical Superintendent.  When his devoted predecessor, Dr. Samuel B. Lyon,