"On nervous disease in Thailand".

UNLIKE BURMA, the Vietnams, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand has never at any time been under the domination of a Western Power and it is only in the last quarter of a century that much authentic information about it has become available. Traditionally, of course, it is the home of the white elephant, of Siamese twins and cats, and, to the cinema-going public who remember "Anna and The King of Siam", a romantic land of almost mediaeval splendour. The country, which occupies some 200,000 square miles, is about the size of France and rhomboidal in shape, with a long narrow tail like a fish of the ray species. High mountain ranges dominate its northern and western borders whilst the central plain is drained and irrigated by many rivers, notably the Chae Phya which flows into the Gulf of Siam. On the north-west it is bounded by Burma, on the north-east by Laos, on its eastern side by Cambodia and South Vietnam, while in the south its frontier joins with that of Malaysia. Still predominantly agricultural, the economy of Thailand hinges on the production of rice, in this respect its place in the Far East being comparable to that of the United States and Canada in the West. Just as these countries supply the major part of the wheat required for the western style of diet so is Thailand the Canada of the Orient in being the main source of rice in South-East Asia. Other important industries include: tin mining and rubber planting in the southern province, teak forestry in the north' and all over the country the manufacture on hand-operated looms of silk, as famous for its quality in the civilized world as is Irish linen. In the 1960 census the population was 271 million with a sex ratio of 92.0 for males (13 and 14 million males and females respectively), some 54 per cent being under the age of 20 years2. The rapid growth of the capital, Bangkok, and its situation on the direct air route to Japan and Australia has transformed it from the one-time picturesque "Venice of the East" with its many canals or "klongs" and bridges, and a population of some 700,000 before the second great war, to a modem city of 2 million inhabitants which rivals Calcutta, Singapore, Hong Kong and even Tokyo in its increasing importance. Other large cities, however, are few, the chief being the beautifully unspoilt Chiengmai in the north-west province with half a million inhabitants. Geographically, Thailand lies between the 5th and 20th parallels of latitude so that the climate is tropical, the temperature fairly constant throughout the year and the seasons marked only by dry and rainy phases. During the latter periods extensive flooding of the low-lying central plain, particularly around Bangkok, occurs. "Thai" means free, and the original Thais were migrants from the Himalayas in India and from Yunnan in China. Ethnically the people are a composite race whose physical characteristics reflect both their places of origin and their mixed ChineseIndian descent: light-coloured skin like that of southern Europeans, a pyknic build, small stature and the absence of obesity being particularly noticeable, as is their happy disposition and friendly mien towards strangers. No people excels the