THE NEUROTIC FAMILY ELEMENT.

It is unfortunate that data on the relative importance of the factors composing the neurotic family history is so conflicting. Observers still hold very divergent opinions on the value of nearly every sign of degeneracy. The lack of unanimity in this respect is still more strikingly in evidence in estimating the clinical significance of the so-called degeneration stigma, both in the antecedents and in personal history of the individual patient. The decision of the value of individual degeneracy must rest largely on the neurologist and psychiatrist, who have often been accused of too much zeal and enthusiasm in placing excessive stress on degeneration-stigma in the prognosis and treatment of nervous diseases. However true this criticism may be, it is certainly far from being of general application, for many of the German neurologists and alienists, such as Sachs and Oppenheim, discourage the prominence given degeneration-stigma by English, Italian and French authors.