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This article discusses the Archimedes aftereffect and impaired mentation. Three groups of 20 subjects each were selected from the Neurology and Psychiatry Services of a Veterans Administration Hospital. The psychiatry group consisted of patients with a clear primary diagnosis of schizophrenic reaction. None had evidence of neurological abnormality on detailed examination. The patients from the Neurology Service all carried clearly established primary diagnoses involving pathology of the cerebrum. Those with mentation defects were treated separately from those without mentation defect. Mentation defect was defined as the presence of impaired memory, orientation, judgment, intelligence, or emotional control caused by or associated with brain tissue damage, such impaired function having been evaluated by ordinary clinical neurological examination.

The article reports that the classification systems in science serve the purpose of organizing the subject matter into meaningfully related groups and of facilitating the scientist's prediction and control of his variables. It was undoubtedly such considerations that prompted Kraepelin to formulate his original classification of mental disorders. The denotative significance of Kraepelin's original categories have been carefully transmitted from generation to generation of clinical practitioners, in this way enhancing communication between workers in the field of mental health.

The article focuses on the study of one hundred transorbital leucotomies. It reports the results of a program carried out at the Clarinda-based Mental Health Institute, covering a period from November 1951 to July 1953 and involving a total of 104 operations involving transorbital leucotomy performed by a neurosurgeon from a nearby university school of medicine and a staff physician from the institute itself. The main concern of the follow-up involved an evaluation of the total status of each patient after the operation, as compared to his condition before the operation.

The article evaluates the relationship between clinical psychology and psychiatry. According to the author, clinical psychology, like medicine, is primarily concerned with the individual. The clinician seeks through a variety of special techniques to promote the adjustment and readjustment of the individual. Those who seek the assistance of a clinician usually deviate considerably from the norm or they would not ask such help. Psychiatry, on the other hand, seeks to treat and cure those who are considered ill. It is a relatively new field concerned primarily with those suffering from mental and nervous diseases.