Concepts and Problems of Psychotherapy

acquired "ye habit of scribling some thing every night" as a "book for memorandams," and it is to this admirable habit and the, at times, very precise "memorandams," that we owe a most delightful picture of many phases of the medical practice of the period. Married in 1761, she became mother of nine children who most certainly experienced all of the usual-and, indeed, some of the less commoncomplaints of the period. These episodes, for one rather gains the impression that in many instances they were so regarded against the background of the stirring events of the period, supplemented by similar "Fluxes," "mesels," and divers minor complaints among her grand-children, and a certain prevalent waywardness among her maid-servants, afforded material for an ample stock of memoranda. Portrayed is the remarkable freedom from hampering hygienic restrictions characteristic of the day, as well as a fascinating picture of the medicine of the Colonial period, written, let it be noted, from the point of view of the recipient of medical attention rather than from that of the dispenser, and written with a frankness,-concise and critical,-that supplements well the more learned treatise of the period designed for publication. Elizabeth Drinker was abreast of her time, on occasion, somewhat ahead of it; and although she had respect, in various degrees, for Rush, Kuhn, Shippen, Physick, Bard, and Redman, it is evident that her faith and her past experience enforced certain misgivings as to their infallibility. For example, greater than Elizabeth Drinker passed judgment on the well-known Elisha Perkins, perhaps attaining less close to the truth than she, when she noted: "if my faith is necessary to the cure, I fear 'tis not compleat." But with all her doubts, she had a reasonable breadth of mind; if anything, she favored the Jerusalem Earth of the Widow Gomez over the bleedings of Doctor Bard as an appropriate therapy for the tuberculosis of her son William. But to attempt to cover the entertaining and interesting points brought out in the excerpts from the Diary is impossible; the several important sections of the text deal more particularly with yellow fever, small pox, tuberculosis, and childbearing. One can hardly wish that the young Drinkers had experienced greater difficulty in getting born or in maintaining existence, yet had it been true, "ye habit of scribling" could well have added further details worthy of being transcribed by her "twice great grandson."--. H. SMITH.