Mental diseases: A Public Health Problem

About this book

James V. May’s Mental Diseases: a Public Health Problem is a scholarly survey that treats mental illness as a societal issue rather than a purely clinical one. The work opens with a prefatory essay by Thomas W. Salmon, emphasizing the growing interest of social workers, judges, and public‑health officials in the “forms, types and causes of mental illness.” May, a superintendent of several state hospitals and a leading figure in the American Psychiatric Association, then outlines a massive compilation of statistics drawn from more than seventy‑thousand first admissions across dozens of institutions nationwide. The book’s structure, general considerations followed by detailed chapters on each major psychosis, reflects its ambition to assemble the most varied factual material on mental disease available in the early 1920s, from epidemiology to legislation, and to argue for systematic data collection.

The voice is that of a seasoned medical administrator, formal and data‑driven, with a tone that blends advocacy and academic rigor. Its style is dense, footnoted, and rooted in the scientific language of the period, preserving the original spelling and typographical quirks. Readers interested in the history of psychiatry, public‑health policy, or the early statistical foundations of mental‑health research will find it rewarding, while those seeking a narrative or case‑based account of individual patients may find it less engaging.