ABSTRACT
At the turn of the century, psychiatry held a rather obscure and tenuous position among the medical specialties. Psychia trists concerned themselves for the most part with the treat ment of the insane. They had little to do with the psychological troubles of ordinary people, who might turn in their distress to religion, to the popular philosophy of moral uplift, or to a variety of sects and cults of the mind. Psychiatry made a very faint claim to a basis in scientific knowledge.
