THE EFFECT ON THE SKIN OF EMOTIONAL AND NERVOUS STATES

Interest in the effect of emotional and nervous states on bodily function has been growing in this country during the past decade to a degree which makes it seem desirable that the literature on the subject as it affects the skin be collected and, when possible, critically summarized. We undertook this task with little realization of the labor and time required for even a partial fulfilment. When our bibliography approached three hundred titles on the general aspects of the matter alone, it became evident that such a résumé could not be offered before this association en masse, for the first paper itself approaches one hundred pages in length. We are therefore constrained instead to offer for this occasion one of the special summaries, of which eight were planned, dealing with that part of the field of somatopsychic correlations which is thus far most developed, in some of its possible dermatologic