University of Michigan Medical and Nursing School - Aequanimitas Yearbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

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.,.. S ln President Kennedy's world of submission of the individual to national responsibilities, and in his devised governmental responsibility of watchful concern for the nation's economic health, we have approached the world of a governmental shepherd with its flock of timid animals. Most recently the shepherd has opened the field of medical health to its sheep. But have not we, as physicians, as a special privilege group steeped in establishment and form, brought on ourselves the need for social reform? For in our world of equality of condition, Alexis de Tocqueville main- tains that the slightest dissimilarity brings on a hatred and fear in the majority who refuse to acknowledge superior ability, and who will continually remind the capable of the common dependence-both stand to the same master. The physician of today refuses to acknowledge the effects his privileged position creates. He thus is losing his personal liberties to a growing centralized authority which gains its power by way of majority recognizing it as the only body administrative to its wishes. Thomas C. Kingsley '63 ,nv l -- s-... , i 3- s 26

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PSYCHOSOMATIC OR SOMATOPSYCHIC Prior to the ascendance of Freudian psychology, little attention was paid in medicine to the effect of the psyche or the somag presently, opinions are being published in the medical journals to the effect that up to 909 of patients seen by the practitioners are suffering from a psychophysiologica1 disorder. The time may now be ripe for a re-examination of our concepts and for a nudge to the pendulum toward a more balanced position. As an example, let me raise the question of allergy. A multitude of objective biochemical and physiological abnormalities, such as elevated blood histamine level, altered serotonin metabolism, depressed serum potassium, depressed tissue and serum calcium, as well as EEG and triple response abnormalities have been demonstrated in the allergic state, Many workers have stressed the mental symptoms of lack of concentration, forgetfulness, and the mental symptoms of lack of concentration, forgetfulness, con- fusion and decreased learning capacity and their psychological sequelae of frustration, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, para- noid ideas and compulsiveness. Competent investigators have pointed out the frequency of complaints like tension, fatigue, headache, tremulousness, urinary frequency, facial tics and paresthesias. Some of these manifestations may be related to disturbances in histamine and serotonin metabolism, which have only recently been elucidated. Yet the bewildering array of diffuse complaints often make the patient appear neurotic. 28