This Article  • Full text PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal

By John M. Macdonald, MD, FRCP (E). Price, not given. Pp 352. Charles C Thomas Publisher, 301-327 E Lawrence Ave, Springfield, Ill 62703, 1969.

LAWRENCE ZELIC FREEDMAN, MD, Reviewer

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1971;24(4):388.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Psychiatry is the discipline within medicine which has a particular concern for the prevention and treatment of mental disease. Psychopathology refers to those mental diseases for which organic factors have not yet been discovered. This definition reflects the most widespread usage. For some, these "functional" aberrations are included with the "organic" malfunctions defined as disease. Social pathology is a more ambiguous phrase, but is generally used when societal arrangements, both formal, governmental, and informal, self-selected groups, are thought to be pathological.

What do psychopathology and social pathology have to do with each other? They are related through the catalyst of law, the ecclesiastic and feudal law of the Middle Ages and the governmental law of the centuries since.

In the historic origins as well as the contemporary manifestations, of this mingling of concepts and operations, the practitioners of medicine and the law, have both contributed. Early in our past, the . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]