Selected Papers of Edmund Bergler, M.D. 1933–1961

Deer to a discussion on the best way to build a radiation-free room. The most important part of the book is contained in Chapter IV which contains an essay for which in 1960 the author was awarded the Moynihan Prize and Medal; the subject was 'The surgical treatment of ischaemic heart disease' and special consideration is given to the variations of the coronary circulation. A review is given of all the surgical methods then available for increasing the coronary circulation. This essay is followed by a list of over 500 references which should prove of value to medical historians. This chapter is followed by an account of several cases in which an anastomosis was made between the pulmonary artery and the left atrium of the heart for patients suffering from severe angina pectoris. The chapter entitled 'Idle thoughts culled from the history of medicine does not contain much that is new and is somewhat disappointing. In the interesting section on 'Dress for surgeons' the story of the development of the antiseptic and aseptic techniques is described but the name of Alexander Ogston as the discoverer of the staphylococcus is not mentioned. Throughout the book the author mentions many ideas which occur to him which appear trivial but might become more important at some future date. At the end of the book there is a photograph of the author with a brief account of his chief achievements; an account of his undergraduate days in Dublin is given in an introductory chapter that is appropriately headed 'A Touch of the Green.' no price stated. The late Dr. Bergler was the author of some three hundred papers and more than twenty books devoted to broadening and popularizing the contribution of psychoanalysis to understanding normal and abnormal mental life. Seventy-nine of his papers are reprinted here with minor excisions; and appended is a chronological list of his writings. Dr. Bergler left Vienna in 1938 and was in private practice in New York at the time of his death in 1962. He was a second-generation Freudian and a fluent exponent of the theory with a flair for adapting it to changing cultural tastes and patterns. If 'rum, sodomy, the lash' used to epitomize naval life, then 'impotence, frigidity, perversion' would be a fair summary of psychoanalytic preoccupations. It is the essence of this collection plus rather more than a dash of sado-masochism. At the same …