deavors to subdivide his material into this or that group are somewhat
artificial. Granted that we are dealing with mental disorders, whose
existence can be possible only by a certain degenerative predisposition,
the question arises, "Of how much practical value is this constant
endeavor at classification and subdivision of the psychotic
manifestations which these individuals show?" One must acknowledge that
the salient feature here is not the particular coloring which these
psychoses assume, but, as we have stated before, the soil upon which
they develop. At most, we might say that the symptomatology of these
psychoses would depend on the question whether it is the ideational
sphere which is mostly concerned, or the affective sphere. Turning to
Wilmanns' excellent contribution to this subject one again
meets with the same endeavors at subdivision and classification. Lack
of space will not permit us to enter into an extensive discussion of
this author's work. We have already indicated here and there in passing,
some of the essential points in the views of this author.

One turns with quite a degree of relief to the momentous work of
Birnbaum[13] on the Psychoses of Degeneracy. As far as can be
ascertained the author does not endeavor to subdivide his degenerative
states into so many types and forms. According to him, the essential
characteristics of the degenerative psychoses--namely, the extraordinary
determinability and influence which outside impressions have upon the
disorder, the mode of genesis and the psychological evolution of the
delusions, etc.,--may be attributed to the essential ear-marks of the
degenerative character; that is, to the exaggerated auto-suggestibility,
the great instability of the existing conditions and mental pictures,
the disharmony between the perceptive and imaginative capacities and the
preponderance of a lively fantastic coloring to the dry thinking of
these individuals. They do not form disease processes of a definite
characteristic form, but episodic psychotic manifestations on a
degenerative soil, and the manifold phases of the collective forms are
to be considered as repeated fluctuations about the psychic equilibrium
of these individuals. He further noted that the symptomatology of these
disorders remained limited to a relatively well systematized delusional
fabric, which, however, in contradistinction to paranoia, does not
persist for any length of time, but disappears for certain