Review of A Pediatrician in Search of Mental Hygiene

Abstract

Reviews the book, A Pediatrician in Search of Mental Hygiene by Bronson Crothers (see record 1938-00272-000 ). As a practicing pediatrician, Crothers undertakes to survey the field of mental hygiene, and to dispassionately evaluate the services of various professional groups engaged therein. In previous publications this author has suggested his point of view toward these problems, and in this book reiterates and clarifies many earlier statements. He upholds, and rightly so, the responsibility of the pediatrician for physical ailments of children. He also quite rightly points out that in the minds of the lay public there is seldom a differentiation between organic illness and functional behavior maladjustment. Therefore, the pediatrician will inevitably be called upon to do something about the child's behavior. Here he recognizes the limitations of the usual physician's or pediatrician's training and experience, and warns that "the doctor, by ruthless use of medical prestige, can block inquiry about mental and emotional problems," but on the other hand "he is in a position of extraordinary natural strength if he chooses to include in his conception of pediatrics an intelligent interest in the confuted but fascinating problems covered by the general term of mental hygiene." With this basic thesis in mind Crothers presents an analysis of the reciprocal relations of mental hygiene and pediatrics in which he does not claim a superiority for pediatrics, but points out the mutual advantages of cooperation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)