This Article  • References  • 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  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

A Study of Psychiatric Epidemiology

JAN EHRENWALD, M.D.

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1960;3(3):232-242.

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

For obvious reasons the epidemiological analysis of mental disorders takes the various recognized nosological entities as its point of departure. It studies the incidence of manic-depressive psychosis, schizophrenic reactions, neurosis, senile or epileptic disorders, alcoholism, and suicide or psychological infertility in a given society.^1-5 It has accumulated an enormous amount of data concerning their relationships to culture, class, family environment, and changing socioeconomic and political conditions.^6,7 All this does not, however, amount to a conceptually systematized body of knowledge regarding the epidemiology of mental illness.

It is suggested here that the reason for this state of affairs lies in several tacitly implied but unwarranted presuppositions. First, it is implied that mental illness can be compared with the various more or less distinct nosological entities studied in general medicine. Second, their presumed transmission from person to person is discussed in largely metaphorical . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
New York

Attending Psychiatrist, Chief, Adult Psychiatric Outpatients' Service, The Roosevelt Hospital, New York City.

Footnotes
Submitted for publication April 5, 1960.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?