ABSTRACT
The student can be taught on the very firm basis of anatomy and physiology. The medical student can make concise notes and can learn about theories of aetiology, symptomatology, and treatment, and the examiner has a nice question always ready with the word autism certainly understood by any students who have done their homework. Great advances have been made in this century in the establishment of a body of practical theory of emotional development and of the long and complicated story of dependence on the environment gradually turning into independence of the environment. The illness is not like that of oligophrenia, where no development can be expected and the symptoms of mental defect depend directly on the poverty of the apparatus. Nevertheless, most people are rational beings in their best moments, and they can then discuss the relationship between autism developing in a child and a relative failure in infant care.
