Mental Abnormality and Crime

the wrongdoer so as to deter him from repeating the offence or others from imitating him. Nowadays a more subjective attitude is being taken so that the welfare and reform of the criminal are considered. This leads to the conception of partial responsibility and the infliction of the indeterminate curative sentence. The first essay is by Brig. Rees who stresses the importance of diagnosis before treatment. He classifies delinquents into (1) those suffering from physical disease including mental deficiency and encephalitis lethargica, (2) Psychotics, (3) those influenced by other psychological motivations which may be trivial; simple (example of others, etc.); reaction character traits (aggression to inferiority or punishment, etc.), these are generally stubborn and proud of their delinquencies; or psychoneurotics (compulsions, etc.), these are ashamed of their delinquencies. In the second essay Dr. McNiven deals with the psychoses, and, after a clinical description of various forms of psychotic delinquents, gives an excellent discussion of criminal responsibility. He points out the difficulty of the general application of the McNaghten rules owing to the vagueness of the conception of mental illness. He suggests that the questions requiring answer