Originally published in 1970 this title commemorates the men and ideas that started, inspired and established a pioneer institution in British psychiatry. Based on the impetus of Freudian and related innovations after the First World War, the Tavistock Clinic offered treatment, training and research facilities in the field of neurosis, child guidance and later on group relations. Dr Dicks, who had been associated for nearly forty years with the work and personalities that helped to develop the Tavistock venture, describes the (...) struggles and capacity for survival of the clinic. He shows how, belonging neither to the older classical psychiatry nor to orthodox psychoanalysis, and suspect to both, the Clinic nevertheless became increasingly used by the rest of the profession as a psychotherapeutic resource. Dr Dicks describes the influence of the Tavistock on the medical, psychological and social work scene both before and after the Second World War, and assesses its achievements as a centre of psycho- and socio-dynamic thinking. The Tavistock is shown as a pioneer _sui generis_, launching psychosomatic research and initiating the exciting ventures in social psychiatry associated with the Army in the Second World War. As the Tavistock was the outcome of work with shell-shock victims in the first war, so its offspring, the Institute of Human Relations, was the natural continuation of the military effort in man-management, morale and group dynamic studies. The book includes an account of the inter-relationship between the Clinic, now part of the National Health Service, and the Institute, a private corporation. Still going strong as part of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust today this is an opportunity to revisit its early history. (shrink)

This book is a translation of W.V. Quine's Kant Lectures, given as a series at Stanford University in 1980. It provide a short and useful summary of Quine's philosophy. There are four lectures altogether: I. Prolegomena: Mind and its Place in Nature; II. Endolegomena: From Ostension to Quantification; III. Endolegomena loipa: The forked animal; and IV. Epilegomena: What's It all About? The Kant Lectures have been published to date only in Italian and German translation. The present book is filled out (...) with the translator's critical Introduction, "The esoteric Quine?" a bibliography based on Quine's sources, and an Index for the volume. (shrink)

Originally published in 1970 this title commemorates the men and ideas that started, inspired and established a pioneer institution in British psychiatry. Based on the impetus of Freudian and related innovations after the First World War, the Tavistock Clinic offered treatment, training and research facilities in the field of neurosis, child guidance and later on group relations. Dr Dicks, who had been associated for nearly forty years with the work and personalities that helped to develop the Tavistock venture, describes the (...) struggles and capacity for survival of the clinic. He shows how, belonging neither to the older classical psychiatry nor to orthodox psychoanalysis, and suspect to both, the Clinic nevertheless became increasingly used by the rest of the profession as a psychotherapeutic resource. Dr Dicks describes the influence of the Tavistock on the medical, psychological and social work scene both before and after the Second World War, and assesses its achievements as a centre of psycho- and socio-dynamic thinking. The Tavistock is shown as a pioneer _sui generis_, launching psychosomatic research and initiating the exciting ventures in social psychiatry associated with the Army in the Second World War. As the Tavistock was the outcome of work with shell-shock victims in the first war, so its offspring, the Institute of Human Relations, was the natural continuation of the military effort in man-management, morale and group dynamic studies. The book includes an account of the inter-relationship between the Clinic, now part of the National Health Service, and the Institute, a private corporation. Still going strong as part of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust today this is an opportunity to revisit its early history. (shrink)

At the beginning of the twentieth century, poliomyelitis presented a scientific and medical challenge of a complexity similar to that of AIDS now. Research on polio, mainly in the US, gradually became focussed to solving basic questions, but was held up by the lack of suitable laboratory techniques. The financing of the research and the wide range of basic topics funded were the model for later medical science. The problem of polio, at least in the wealthier temperate countries, has been (...) solved by the use of vaccines. Many fundamental questions about the mechanism of the disease remained unsolved and this lack of knowledge has contributed to many unfortunate accidents. The history of polio has many lessons for AIDS researchers. (shrink)

This is a case that should go to the European Court of Human Rights. A decent, senior qualified family doctor was accused by his mentally ill daughter of sex abuse. Without real evidence except for what the girl told another mentally ill patient at a psychiatric hospital she stayed at for several years, and wit just two witnesses, one a younger child wo saw none of the accused offences, and the other parent, struck off the General Medical Council Register for (...) drunk driving more than once, the case was fitted up by those who are rampantly seeking to raise statistical numbers for child sex abuse offences by high level persons- a bizarre situation and a travesty against tis family doctor's human rights, because a judge can use his 'discretion' to send a much needed family doctor to 18 years in jail. The International Community should scrutinize the United Kingdom's Criminal Justice System. (shrink)

Death of motor neurones following invasion of the central nervous system by poliovirus may result in paralysis of specific muscles. Virulence may be tested by injection into monkeys by routes which bypass natural infection. Transmissibility is also very important, but cannot be measured, only inferred. An infection may lead to immunity or paralysis. In epidemics, the highest incidence among children 0-2 years was 2% and among those over 10 years was 25%: these figures fit a model of genetic susceptibility of (...) homozygotes and heterozygotes with phenotypic susceptibility increasing with age. Hypogamma-globulinemics, some neonates and pregnant women are more susceptible than others. Intra-muscular injections may increase the risk of paralysis. Strenuous exercise and IM injections given when poliovirus has already reached the spinal cord can increase the severity of paralysis or convert a non-paralytic attack to paralysis. Although vaccines reduced polio in temperate countries, polio was thought to be no problem in the tropics. Since 1977 polio has been recognised as a massive problem in the third world: because it affects babies and very young children, it is properly infantile paralysis. (shrink)

David Shaw presents a new argument to support the old claim that there is not a significant moral difference between killing and letting die and, by implication, between active and passive euthanasia. He concludes that doctors should not make a distinction between them. However, whether or not killing and letting die are morally equivalent is not as important a question as he suggests. One can justify legal distinctions on non-moral grounds. One might oppose physician- assisted suicide and active euthanasia when (...) performed by doctors on patients whether or not one is in favour of the legalisation of assisted suicide and active euthanasia. Furthermore, one can consider particular actions to be contrary to appropriate professional conduct even in the absence of legal and ethical objections to them. Someone who wants to die might want only a doctor to kill him or to help him to kill himself. However, we are not entitled to everything that we want in life or death. A doctor cannot always fittingly provide all that a patient wants or needs. It is appropriate that doctors provide their expert advice with regard to the performance of active euthanasia but they can and should do so while, qua doctors, they remain hors de combat. (shrink)