The rules known as Koch's postulates have served as invaluable guides to the discovery of the specific causes of various infectious diseases. It may safely be assumed that their influence has also been great on the methods of study in the field of non-infectious diseases. For example, with slight modification Koch's postulates may be applied to the study of diseases caused by poisons. But can they be modified and applied with profit in psychiatric research? This is an important problem, and it cannot be discussed without reference, explicit or implicit, to philosophical assumptions. In this paper some consequences of the philosophy of science of Sir Karl Popper will be tentatively explored.

If a person is faced with some potentially frightening task such as making a speech, then the company of a friend, who contributes nothing directly, may improve the delivery of the speech by his emotional support, more traditionally called moral support. It seems the same article as that which ought to be supplied to a child by its parents, to a patient by his therapist, or to a worker by his supervisor so that efficiency can develop and be maintained. However, a therapist or a supervisor may not know when emotional support is being given; sometimes the presence of another person can be embarrassing, and so a normally efficient pattern of behaviour may be disturbed. For this reason an examination of the nature of support seems warranted.

Virtually nothing is known about the prevalence of mental illness in Ethiopia. The only two mental hospitals, one in Addis Ababa and one in Asmara, caring for about 800 in-patients from a population of 22 million perhaps reflect the type of severe psychotic illness occurring in this country (Pavicevic, 1966). A few authors (Leiris, 1958; Lord, Fuller Torrey, 1966; Messing, 1959; Giel, Gezahegn and van Luijk 1968a and b) mention the existence of psychoneurotic illness, indicating that local cults and native healers play a role in their management. However no epidemio logical survey has been conducted to provide more systematic information. Any attempt at such a survey is bound to meet with consider able difficulties. Hospital statistics regarding admission rates are influenced most of all by economic factors and by distance from hospital, especially during the rainy season when travelling is at times almost impossible.

In 1952 Osmond and Smythies, with Harley-Mason, suggested that schizophrenia might be due to an abnormality in the metabolism of epinephrine, by which a mescaline-like substance such as dimethoxyphenylethylamine (DMPE) might be produced by O-methylation at the third and fourth positions. It was felt then that DMPE might have “psychotomimetic properties” similar to mescaline.

Pericyazine (“Neulactil”), introduced in 1961, is a phenothiazine with tranquillizing and stimulating properties.

One specific hypothesis concerning the biochemical lesion in schizophrenia was put forward by McIsaac (1961) on the basis of the close chemical relationship between the pineal hormone melatonin and the hallucinogenic drug harmine. On this basis Nicholson et al. (1966) conducted a clinical trial of D-penicillamine plus a low copper diet in schizophrenics, with encouraging results. They used 1,200 mg. daily in a double-blind trial against placebo for six weeks. Hollister et al. (1966) also treated schizophrenic patients with D-penicillamine, but for a different reason—they suggested that depolymerization might be effective if schizophrenia is an autoimmune disorder. They used doses of 1,000 mg. daily for five weeks following an initial build up, and noted no clinical amelioration in 13 schizophrenics studied. A normal diet was given. Walshe (1967) failed to find any improvement in 4 chronic patients on penicillamine for one year.

As part of a larger study of cognitive disorder among the schizophrenias (Foulds et al., 1967a, 1967b), aspects of retardation were investigated. The relation of retardation to other forms of thought disorder in schizophrenia has been extensively investigated by Payne (Payne, 1960, 1962; Payne, Ancevich and Laverty, 1963; Payne, Caird and Laverty, 1964; Payne and Caird, 1967) who has used the three Babcock tests (Babcock and Levy, 1940), and the Wechsler Digit Symbol test as his measuring instruments.

The natural history of alcoholism has been described by Trice and Wahl (1958) and by Glatt (1967). The “average” alcoholic first begins drinking when aged 18, and by the time he is 26 he is drinking heavily and frequently becomes drunk. He begins to experience blackouts between the ages of 30 and 35, and a number of years later he is no longer able to control his intake of alcohol. He begins to lose contact with his family and friends and starts drinking alone. By the middle of the fifth decade he has reached his lowest point and seeks admission to hospital. In a proportion of cases∗ this process is markedly accelerated and patients aged 30 or less are admitted to hospital because of alcohol dependence.

Concern has been expressed in many quarters about the size of the problem of alcoholism in Great Britain, although there are no figures available from a direct count in the general population. Morrison (1964) has adduced evidence that the size of the problem doubled between 1956 and 1961 and that alcoholism is perhaps four or five times more prevalent in Scotland than in England and Wales. Existing treatment facilities have been criticized and the establishment of special units for the treatment of alcoholics has been advocated (Ministry of Health, 1962). One such unit was opened in Edinburgh in 1963 (Walton et al., 1966), and the opening of further units in Scotland is being considered (Scottish Home and Health Department, 1965).

The relationship of electroencephalographic (EEG) differences to personality measures aroused early interest (see Hill, 1963). For example, Adrian (1935) considered that EEG variations between subjects might correspond to differences in emotional constitution, and contrasts have been found in the personalities of patients with high and those with low alpha indices (McAdam and Orme, 1954).

In an authoritative paper, Sandler and Hazari (1960) examined the responses of 100 neurotic patients to a personality questionnaire. The latter was in fact the Tavistock Self-Assessment Inventory, which consists of 867 statements each of which the subject is required to mark as “True” or “False” in regard to himself. Sandler and Hazari extracted responses to forty of these statements which were regarded as having reference to obsessive/compulsive character traits and symptoms, and subjected the data to factor analysis. Two factors were identified, and the original items were then classified according to their projection on two reference vectors, A and B, obtained through rotation of the Centroid factor axes through 45°. The two groups of items represented “two tendencies which, in their appearance in this group of patients, appear to be more or less unrelated”.

Future psychiatrists are likely to be recruited from the segment of the medical student body expressing an interest in psychiatry as a future career. This investigation deals with the personality differences found in students according to their positive or negative attitude to psychiatry.

This paper describes a study of the sources and content of ideas concerning sex and reproduction held by adolescent girls in an approved school. The inquiry arose as the result of a question asked in a discussion group of psychiatrists as to how boys and girls normally acquired information about sex.

In 1965 the Education Committee drew up a questionnaire on postgraduate training which was circulated to recognized psychiatric hospitals and psychiatric units in general hospitab. The results have been published in this Journal (November 1968, 114, 1441). The Committee recognized that this method of inquiry was by no means ideal, and in order to provide confirmatory information another questionnaire on postgraduate experience and training was circulated to a group of consultant psychiatrists in the United Kingdom. This group comprised all those who were appointed as consultants in adult psychiatry (including psychotherapy) by public appointment (i.e. not personally upgraded) for the first time between 1 October 1963 and 30 September 1966, and who had six or more N.H.S. sessions. A list of all those consultants who were thought to fall into this group was compiled with the help of Regional Hospital Boards and the Ministry of Health, and 191 questionnaires were sent out, with a request that the form be returned uncompleted if the individual had been wrongly assigned.

In expressing its views on the subjects raised in Sir George Godber's letters,∗ the Royal Medico-Psychological Association has considered the general recommendations made by the Royal Commission on postgraduate education, the number of medical school places and the training of overseas doctors. In addition, the R.M.P.A. has considered those recommendations involving psychiatric education, the assessment of proficiency in psychiatry, the administrative aspects of psychiatric training, the vocational register for psychiatrists, the manpower problems raised by the proposals for postgraduate training and organization, and the proposals for medical education in London. Members of the R.M.P.A. are conscious of the increasing importance of these subjects as the time approaches for the Association to assume the status and responsibilities of a College. Many of the issues raised are controversial and it is difficult to do more than produce interim replies: this document is therefore tentative in its comments. The R.M.P.A.'s approach must remain flexible in the expectation of future developments, especially with regard to the assumption of collegiate status. In March 1969 these issues will again be discussed during the course of a Conference on Postgraduate Psychiatric Education to be held under the auspices of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association and the Association for the Study of Medical Education.