ABSTRACT
Examples of serious diagnostic errors were often demonstrated to the medical students: a patient who appeared to be depressed proved to suffer from myasthenia; a female patient believed to be hysteric was afflicted with multiple sclerosis. It is permissible to attempt to apply both the biological and the psychological approach simultaneously so long as one is aware that one then neither moves completely in the realm of biology nor psychology. A few insignificant organic disturbances could always be discovered to justify some form of medication, with the result that the development of chronic character disturbances was encouraged, for instance, in the form of a masked drug addiction or of a progressively worsening psychological invalidism. A patient can be diagnosed as healthy when examined with the methods of modern biology—yet he can simultaneously be diagnosed as ill when examined by the methods of modern psychology.
