82

ANNOTATIONS

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

IN a letter to the Manchester Guardian, whichappeared in its issue for June 25th, 13 vice-presidentsof a new Association for the Scientific Treatment ofDelinquency and Crime appeal to the public for theirinterest, cooperation, and financial support. Theyallege that the first aim of the new organisationwill be to promote economy of effort by correlatingand consolidating existing preventive work in theparticular sphere of its activity. In addition, itwill seek to secure contact and cooperation betweenall the authorities concerned-social, legal, medical,and psychological. Moreover, it hopes to establishobservation centres under qualified specialists, andwill itself initiate and promote research into thecauses and treatment of delinquency and crime

along more comprehensive lines than are possibleat present. Dr. E. T. Jensen is named as the chair-man of the Organising Committee, and, as the medicalexaminer of the Institute of Journalists, he shouldhave little difficulty in obtaining for the new associa-tion all the publicity it may need; three of the vice-presidents who sign the letter are Alfred Adler,Sigmund Freud, and C. G. Jung; the others are

Lord Allen of Hurtwood, William Brown, W. J. Brown,Havelock Ellis, Edward G. Glover, Ernest Jones,Edward Mapother, Emanuel Miller, Otto Rank, andH. G. Wells-a company in which the psycho-analysts predominate. Apart from the promise ofresearch the proposed programme, including theobservation centres, coincides with the declared aimsand work of various societies already in activeexistence in England, the oldest and most successfulbeing the Howard League, which has done much tosecure a sane and efficient public opinion on the bestmethods of dealing with the problem of the criminal.In a publication prepared for general attention thenew association registers its intention to establish asearly as it can an experimental clinic for the investiga-tion and treatment of carefully selected cases. Inthis clinic it is hoped that various schools of criminalpsychology will be represented,_so that all knownmethods of examination and treatment may be tried.Series of lecture-discussions will be organised in

conjunction with this clinic, and publications reflectingits scientific outlook will be issued. It is intended

primarily to investigate and treat cases of childrenand young adults who may come under the noticeof the police, and the association believes that as thepublic learns to appreciate the success attained inthe treatment of such cases, parents, who had takenuntold trouble and suffered incalculable anxiety inkeeping secret the delinquent tendencies of theichildren, will bring these children to the clinic for

early treatment. Certain practical recommendationsare made, and these are said to be based largely orthe terms of the report prepared, at the request o:

the Medical Research Council, by Dr. G. W. PailthorpeThey are as follows: " (1) The establishment oclearing stations (observation centres) at which firsoffenders would undergo a psychological and physicaexamination, and be sent for treatment as condition.demand, either to (a) psychotherapeutic clinics (to:cases of mental conflict, border-line psychotic cases&c.), or (b) re-education centres for treatment individually or in groups, or (c) permanent protectionand supervision without loss of freedom for thosnot amenable to scientific treatment but not dangerouto the community (certain abnormal and mentalldeficient types), or (d) permanent segregation fo

hopeless cases (anti-social mental defectives,’psychotics, &c.) ; and (2) the formation of laboratoriesfor psychological research." An examination of thereports of the Prison Commissioners will reveal that,although the terminology used is somewhat different,many of the activities proposed, including labora-tories, have been adopted or are in process of beingadopted as part of the official routine of dealing withoffenders ; moreover, the early treatment centresnow being instituted by local authorities underthe Mental Treatment Act will be concernedwith some of this work, which is the particularcare also of the Institute of Medical Psychology,the child guidance clinics, and similar bodiesin many of our large towns. Finally, the recentDepartmental Committee on Persistent Offenders hasrecommended that medical psychologists should beattached to one or more penal establishments in orderto carry out treatment in selected cases, and advocatesthe practice of allowing a certain number of offendersto attend approved mental hospitals or out-patientclinics on probation.

It will be seen, therefore, that much of the workthe new association proposes to initiate is alreadybeing done, and it will be a pity if the money to becollected is to be spent in instituting attempts atunnecessary reduplication. The most hopeful of itsproposals is that dealing with the establishment ofa central experimental clinic. Much remains to bedone in the region of research, in testing theories,establishing norms and standards, discovering andperfecting methods of treatment. This such a cliniccould undertake usefully, and especially so if it wasorganised as part of a larger institution devoted tothe study of legal medicine as a whole. Until nowmedico-legal institutes have been devoted to thestudy of such subjects as morbid anatomy, forensicchemistry, and toxicology ; the time has come forthem to widen their outlook and to take all crimefor their province ; accordingly, their establishmentsshould be enlarged to include departments of criminalpsychology and sociology, forensic psychiatry, andpenology. London has no medico-legal institute ;the creation of such an institute has long beenadvocated by THE LANCET, and in the comprehensiveform now suggested, as a National Institute of LegalMedicine, its establishment would be particularlywelcome. ____

: URETERAL CALCULI

IN reviewing 200 cases of ureteral calculusDr. Emerson C. Smith describes methods of treat-

: ment which mostly follow the usual lines. Ureteral: colic is treated by full doses of morphia, with amytal: as an adjunct ; a hot bath raised in temperature tothe limit of toleration ; and in the few cases not

relieved by these methods the insertion of a ureteralcatheter beyond the calculus. For calculus anuria

immediate bilateral ureteral catheterisation should bedone, with bilateral pyelotomy, if the anuria persists

1 for another 24 hours or more. For the removal of the

s stone cystoscopic methods are advocated, and they

rproved successful in 81 per cent. of the cases ; in

, 17 per cent. open operation was performed and in

: 2 per cent. treatment was refused. Operation is

a desirable when the stone is not mobilised after two-

or three cystoscopic manipulations or if it is of morethan 1 cm. diameter ; it is also required in the

presence of acute pyelonephritis, solitary kidney, or1 Canad. Med. Assoc. Jour., May, 1932, p. 560.